New Horizons Measures True Darkness in the Vast Universe

The New Horizons spacecraft, which flew past Pluto in 2015, is now twice as distant from the Sun and has the ability to measure the darkness of space. The New Horizons team aimed the spacecraft's cameras at a patch of sky far away from the Milky Way, the Sun, and bright stars, and measured the amount of light it captured. While it was darker than expected, there was still some unexplained faint glow. The team plans to observe 15 other dark locations to further investigate this mysterious background glow and potentially reveal the true darkness of the cosmos.