Last year, we celebrated 50 years since humans first walked on the moon. That was a long time ago. Yet, we’re still exploring space today. What’s in the rest of our solar system? We’ve sent lots of spacecraft to find out. These missions are all unmanned.

One of the latest missions went back to the moon, but to a different part of it. The moon goes around Earth once a month. And the same side always faces Earth. That near side is the part we have always visited with men or unmanned spacecraft.

In 2019, China landed a spacecraft on the far side of the moon. It landed in a huge crater. Billions of years ago, a large object hit this area. It carved out the crater and kicked up rocks from the moon’s mantle. The spacecraft will study these rocks.

Beyond the asteroid belt lies Jupiter. Jupiter is the largest planet in the solar system. It is 11 times the diameter of Earth. Since 2016, a NASA spacecraft named Juno has been orbiting Jupiter.

Jupiter spins faster than any other planet in the solar system. This rapid spin creates belts of gas that run from east to west. But Juno took pictures of Jupiter’s north and south poles. There are no gas belts there. Instead, the poles have vast, swirling storms.

In 2006, NASA launched a spacecraft named New Horizons. It used Jupiter’s gravity to slingshot itself toward Pluto. Pluto is the ninth largest object that goes around the sun.

Nine years later, New Horizons flew past the dwarf planet. It showed us pictures of mountains kilometers high. The mountains were made of water-ice. Pluto is so cold that this substance is as hard as rock. It was an important discovery. Scientists want to know how the mountains formed.

New Horizons is still going. It flew past the farthest object ever visited, Arrokoth. Much smaller than Pluto, Arrokoth is made of two objects stuck together. It looks like a snowman in space! From tip to tip, it is about
35 kilometers (22 miles) long.