Tag: Pluto

News Years Day 2019:  Kuiper Belt Flyby for New Horizons

News Years Day 2019: Kuiper Belt Flyby for New Horizons

As it speeds away from its historic encounter with Pluto, NASA has identified the most promising target for the New Horizon’s next flyby, and it might present a scheduling issue for mission scientists and space enthusiasts who happen to be college football fans, at least for New Year’s Day 2019. That is when New Horizons […]

Posted in: Outer Planets
New Horizons Sails Past Pluto

New Horizons Sails Past Pluto

Most Recent Image of Pluto Taken Before Flyby: Credit NASA/SWRI Fifty years to the day after NASA’s Mariner 4 took the first images of another planet from deep space as part of its flyby of Mars, the space agency’s New  Horizons probe has sailed past the point of its closest approach to the planet Pluto. […]

Posted in: NASA, Outer Planets
The Strange Dance of Pluto’s Moons

The Strange Dance of Pluto’s Moons

Credits: NASA/ESA/A. Feild (STScI) NASA’s New Horizons spacecraft is still 6 weeks away from its Bastille Day flyby of former planet Pluto, but based on new data gathered by researchers using the Hubble Space Telescope,  it will have an opportunity to provide an up close view of the strange dance being called by the former […]

Posted in: NASA, Outer Planets
Imaging Icy Worlds: Dawn, Cassini and New Horizons Promise a Hot Summer

Imaging Icy Worlds: Dawn, Cassini and New Horizons Promise a Hot Summer

Image Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Space Science Institute 2015 is shaping up as a banner year for imaging icy worlds.  The ion powered Dawn probe arrived at the Dwarf planet Ceres in the Main Asteroid Belt on March 6th, and is currently on that world’s shadowed side, still firing its engines as it seeks a circular science orbit […]

Posted in: Asteroids, Outer Planets
Icy “Dwarf Planet” Ceres Looming Larger as Dawn Approaches

Icy “Dwarf Planet” Ceres Looming Larger as Dawn Approaches

Ceres Photographed on January 15 / Image Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/UCLA/MPS/DLR/IDA Closing in on its March 6 rendezvous with the dwarf planet Ceres, NASA’s Dawn spacecraft has provided its best image yet of the enigmatic ice world which is the largest object in the main asteroid belt. The images, shown below in a looped 2 second YouTube […]

Posted in: Asteroids, NASA
New Horizons Crosses Neptune’s Orbit on Way to Pluto

New Horizons Crosses Neptune’s Orbit on Way to Pluto

Image Credit: NASA/JPL Last week, NASA released this enhanced video of images Voyager 2 shot of Neptune’s moon Triton as it sailed past in 1989. Today, the New Horizons spacecraft crossed Neptune’s orbit on the way to its own flyby of now minor planet Pluto. The full NASA story is below. NASA New Story August […]

Posted in: NASA, Outer Planets
New Discovery at the Edge of Solar System Suggests Planet X May Still Be Out There

New Discovery at the Edge of Solar System Suggests Planet X May Still Be Out There

Time lapse photo showing movement On the third episode of the re-tooled COSMOS, Neil deGrasse Tyson took his ship of the imagination to the Oort cloud to discover the origin of comets. He may have to go back. Astronomers have discovered a second dwarf planet orbiting in the far reaches of the solar system, well […]

Posted in: Outer Planets
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