Pluto News, The Kuipers and Beyond
February 08, 2010
Hubble Catches Pluto Changing With The Years
Washington DC (SPX) Feb 5, 2010
NASA today released the most detailed set of images ever taken of the distant dwarf planet Pluto. The images taken by NASA's Hubble Space Telescope show an icy and dark molasses-colored, mottled world that is undergoing seasonal changes in its surface color and brightness. Pluto has become significantly redder, while its illuminated northern hemisphere is getting brighter. These changes ar ... read more

Blushing Pluto? Dwarf planet takes on a ruddier hue: NASA
Washington (AFP) Feb 4, 2010
Pluto, the dwarf planet on the outer edge of our solar system, has a dramatically ruddier hue than it did just a few years ago, NASA scientists said Thursday, after examining photos taken by the Hubble Space Telescope. They said the distant orb appears mottled and molasses-colored in recent pictures, with a markedly redder tone that most likely is the result of surface ice melting on Pluto's ... more

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Four Years And Counting
Baltimore MD (SPX) Jan 20, 2010
NASA's New Horizons mission team marks four years of flight today - and their Pluto-bound spacecraft is sleeping right through the celebration. Operators at the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory in Laurel, Md., commanded New Horizons into hibernation on Friday after 10 days of maintenance, during which they downloaded Student Dust Counter data from the solid-state recorde ... more

New Horizons Now Closer To Pluto Than Earth
Washington DC (SPX) Dec 30, 2009
The new year approaches with New Horizons zooming past another milestone: the NASA spacecraft is now closer to target planet Pluto than its home planet, Earth. "This is the first of several milestones over the next 10 months that mark the halfway points in our journey to the solar system's frontier, where Pluto lies. We on the mission team know we will have a long way to go, but are ... more

Hubble Finds Smallest Kuiper Belt Object Ever Seen
Washington DC (SPX) Dec 18, 2009
NASA's Hubble Space Telescope has discovered the smallest object ever seen in visible light in the Kuiper Belt, a vast ring of icy debris that is encircling the outer rim of the solar system just beyond Neptune. The needle-in-a-haystack object found by Hubble is only 3,200 feet across and a whopping 4.2 billion miles away. The smallest Kuiper Belt Object (KBO) seen previously in reflected ... more

The PI's Perspective - Farewell 2009
Baltimore MD (SPX) Dec 08, 2009
New Horizons is now more than 1,400 days into its 9.5-year journey and well past 15 AU (astronomical units) from the Sun. We still have about 2,050 days ahead of us before we reach the Pluto system, but on Dec. 29, we'll reach the first of several midway milestones. New Horizons will be closer to Pluto (the red line) than to Earth (the blue curve). This marker puts a nice capstone on 2009 ... more

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  • 'Eyes' of Herschel Will Survey Trans-Neptunian Region


  • Astronomy Question Of The Week: Why Is Pluto No Longer A Planet


  • New Horizons Hits Halfway Mark Between Saturn, Uranus Orbits


  • New Horizons Team Begins To Look At Kuiper Targets
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    Dawn Continues Its Quiet Cruise
    Pasadena CA (SPX) Sep 02, 2009
    The Dawn mission remains on course as the spacecraft continues to thrust with its ion propulsion system, patiently, persistently, and gently changing its orbit to keep its appointment with protoplanet Vesta in two years. Meanwhile, closer to mission control and in stark contrast, brave firefighters work hard to protect JPL and the nearby homes of many of its employees and others in the community ... more

    New Horizons Checks Out, Enters Hibernation
    Laurel MD (SPX) Sep 01, 2009
    The New Horizons mission team has closed out a successful summer workout, putting its Pluto-bound spacecraft back into hibernation on Aug. 27 after seven weeks of functional tests and system checks. The mission's third annual checkout (ACO-3), which started July 7, "went very well," says Mission System Engineer Chris Hersman, of the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory. "New ... more

    Flashback To Neptune's Moon Triton
    Pasadena CA (SPX) Aug 31, 2009
    Newly released images commemorate the 20-year anniversary of the Voyager flyby of Neptune's moon Triton on Aug. 24, 2009. Triton was the last solid object visited by NASA's Voyager 2 spacecraft as it headed toward the edges of our solar system. Triton, Neptune's largest moon, is one of the "coolest" objects in the solar system, literally, with a surface temperature of minus 235 degre ... more

    Pluto likely to remain a pariah
    Rio De Janeiro (UPI) Aug 2, 2009
    Pluto's lowered celestial status will probably stick at an upcoming meeting of astronomers in Rio de Janeiro, an American astronomer predicted Sunday. Pluto was reduced from a full-fledged planet -- the ninth in the Earth's solar system -- to dwarf planet at a meeting of the International Astronomical Union three years ago in Prague, Czech Republic. The Houston Chronicle reporte ... more

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  • Spacecraft Gets Remote Annual Check Up From Home


  • Galileo's Notebooks May Reveal Secrets Of New Planet


  • New Horizons Wakes For Annual Checkout


  • Planning Six Years Ahead
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