Kuiper-belt Mission
After passing by Pluto, New Horizons will continue farther into the Kuiper belt. Mission planners are now searching for one or more additional Kuiper belt objects (KBOs) on the order of 50–100 km (31–62 mi) in diameter for flybys similar to the spacecraft's Plutonian encounter. As maneuvering capability is limited, this phase of the mission is contingent on finding suitable KBOs close to New Horizons's flight path, ruling out any possibility for a planned flyby of Eris, a trans-Neptunian object comparable in size to Pluto. The available region, being fairly close to the plane of the Milky Way and thus difficult to survey for dim objects, is one that has not been well-covered by previous KBO search efforts. The public helped to scan telescopic images for possible mission candidates by participating in the Ice Hunters project, although that project is now finished.
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