New Horizons Sets Another First, This Time With Its Camera
Fastest spacecraft ever launched at 36,373 miles per hour (when it left Earth orbit)? Check. First to explore Pluto? Already done. First to explore the Kuiper Belt? Doing it as…
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Pluto
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Catch Up With New Horizons in Four Minutes
What was. What is. And what’s coming. NASA recently released a four-minute video touching on some of the discoveries already made by the hardy Pluto probe. We also get a…
A Stunning Bird’s Eye View of Pluto’s Jagged Mountains and Icy Plains
New Horizons, the fastest spacecraft ever launched, delivered breathtaking images two years ago when it flew just 7,800 miles above Pluto’s surface. The drab world most of us thought Pluto…
The New Proposed Definition for a Planet Isn’t Just About Pluto
Should Pluto be a planet? Does it matter? One group of NASA scientists are emphatic. Yes on both. One month after a group of NASA scientists proposed a new definition…
What Defines a Planet? NASA Scientists Want to Keep It Simple
Dwarf planets, exoplanets, regular planets, moons. Why can’t we just have planets? NASA scientists led by Alan Stern, the principal investigator for NASA’s New Horizons Pluto mission, have proposed a…
And That’s A Wrap For New Horizons’ Pluto Encounter
It only took more than a year, but the New Horizons spacecraft has sent the last slivers of data back home. A portion of a Pluto-Charon observation traveled a staggering…
Pluto’s Sky May Have Clouds and What It Means
A layered, hazy atmosphere. Blue skies. And clouds? New Horizons scientists are discussing the potential of clouds in Pluto’s skies this week at the American Astronomical Society Division for Planetary…
New Horizons Will Be Seeing Red Again on 2014 MU69
Every second that goes by, New Horizons is 9 miles closer to its next target – 2014 MU69. New Hubble Space Telescope data suggests the small Kuiper Belt object (KBO)…
Charon’s Glaring Red Feature Explained
New Horizons blew me away with the first images of Pluto. But there was more to the Pluto system than just a stunning world filled with nitrogen glaciers, icy peaks…
Fly Me to Pluto
A year ago, our understanding of a former planet was changed forever. Pluto wasn’t just a drab rock in the furthest reaches of the solar system. NASA’s New Horizons revealed…
What New Horizons Will See When It Reaches 2014 MU69
NASA’s New Horizons spacecraft stunned the world in 2015 when it beamed back the first high-resolution images of Pluto’s surface. The planet most of us thought was just an icy…
How a Liquid Ocean Explains Pluto’s Geological Activity
The far-reaches of our solar system is far from boring. NASA’s New Horizons probe proved that. When New Horizons approached the dwarf planet last year, no one knew what to…
We Won’t See Pluto This Good for a Long Time
We’re fast approaching the one-year anniversary of New Horizons close encounter with Pluto. On July 14, 2015 – New Horizons soared past the icy world at a distance of just…
Understanding Pluto Without Being There
Exploring the final frontier isn’t the intimate experience it is on Earth. Scientists can’t get their hands dirty on the surface of Mars or Pluto. Rovers help on Mars, but…
The Stunning Halo Craters of Pluto Have a Mystery
During NASA’s New Horizons’ closest approach, it spotted a cluster of craters at the far western reaches of its view. The science team has dubbed them ‘haloed’ craters because of…
Pluto Amazes Once Again With Evidence of Frozen Liquids
NASA recently released another image of Pluto, and it’s one of the most stunning yet. It looks like a frozen pond, doesn’t it? New data from the New Horizons spacecraft…
One Pluto Mountain Chain Appears To Be Covered In Methane Snow
Much of our attention on Pluto has been centered on Sputnik Planum, the vast plain home to floating nitrogen ice glaciers. But, there’s another feature drawing the eyes of the…
9 Stunning Space Images From This Week
With another week coming to a close, let’s take a look back at the beautiful space images brought to us by astronauts and astronomers. Wolf-Rayet star inside a blue bubble…
Pluto’s North Pole is Etched With Icy Canyons
We’ve been mesmerized by Pluto’s plains in the middle of the icy, dwarf planet. But what does the rest of Pluto look like? New Horizons is changing things up this…
New Horizons Solves the Puzzle of Pluto’s Hills
Pluto’s icy plain known as Sputnik Planum appear mostly flat. But, shortly after New Horizons close encounter with Pluto – images were beamed back to Earth showing clumps of hills.…
2016 NASA Stamps Force Me Into the Post Office
NASA, you bastards. Raise your hand if you enjoy a trip to the Post Office. Retirees clogging up the place on the first of every month? Put your hands down…
NASA’s First Movie of Pluto is More Than Just a Trip Through the Color Spectrum
2015 is full of epic stories and images from the final frontier. But one of the most stunning visits has to be New Horizons’ close encounter with Pluto in July.…
New Horizons Latest Images Look Way Beyond Pluto
NASA’s New Horizons spacecraft continues to downlink data taken during its July flyby of the Pluto system. But, that doesn’t mean it’s done taking new images. On November 2, the…
False Color Pluto is Best Pluto
Woah, what’s going on with Pluto? Don’t worry your eyes are fine. You’re looking at a false color image created by New Horizons scientists using a method called principal component…