Poor Pluto! It used to be a planet, and now it’s not. The underdog of the solar system is championed by fourth graders and Boomer traditionalists alike. When I give talks on astronomy, one of the most common questions I…
Tag: Pluto
Water: Liquid and Otherwise
One of the more surprising revelations from spacecraft discoveries among icy bodies in the outer solar system is the apparent prevalence of liquid oceans beneath a surface layer of ice. These moons and dwarf planets were formed early in the…
A New Target
The New Horizons spacecraft has a new target. Launched in 2006, its initial velocity was the fastest ever for an interplanetary probe, and a gravity assist maneuver at Jupiter gave it an additional boost. Even so, it did not arrive…
Pluto Is Still Not a Planet
Sorry, Pluto lovers. A recently published paper by Jean-Luc Margot of UCLA (as a Star Trek Next Generation fan, I had to give the author’s full name) proposes a mathematically rigorous way to define a planet. Pluto, for all its…
Tagged with: Pluto
New Horizons Update
If you’ve been wondering why you haven’t seen any more images from the Pluto flyby lately, here is the reason: But there is exciting news from the New Horizons team! They have selected a tentative target among Kuiper Belt Objects…
ICY WORLDS AND THE PUZZLES OF PLUTO
Over the next 16 months, the data collected during the New Horizons spacecraft’s mid-July flyby of Pluto will find its way back to Earth, a few bits at a time. Already there are surprises in the data so far received.…
The Great Age of Planetary Exploration
How do you measure the milestones in your life? We all have events that help us mark the passage of years: school and jobs, marriage and family, births and deaths. These are of course primary in all our lives, but…
Nine Years to the Ninth Planet
Yes, you read that right. In honor of Pluto’s imminent debut on computer screens worldwide, I’ll award it planetary status for the next few months. After all, when the New Horizons spacecraft nearing Pluto now was launched in January 2006,…
New Horizons Update
As the New Horizons spacecraft closes in on its July flyby of Pluto, its cameras capture ever higher resolution images. Here is a link to the latest released images. It’s starting to get real!
Getting to Pluto
What were you doing on January 19, 2006? If you were in any way connected to the New Horizons mission to Pluto, you were at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida to watch it being launched on its long journey.…
Top