Jul 03 Lock and load for New Horizons, flight plan for Pluto probe is set By Kate Tobin Update on the New Horizons mission: Final flight plan approved. Next stop, Pluto!… Continue reading
Jun 26 Defensive driving at 30,000 miles per hour as probe zooms toward Pluto By Kate Tobin Three weeks from a historic flyby of the dwarf planet Pluto, operators of the New Horizons spacecraft are poring over images and data streaming in from the probe to determine if any final trajectory adjustments will be necessary to steer… Continue reading
Feb 05 Hello, Pluto! New Horizons sends its first pictures of the dwarf planet By Rebecca Jacobson, Inside Energy Three billion miles from Earth, the New Horizons space probe sent back its first images of Pluto and its largest moon Charon. Moving at 31,000 miles per hour, New Horizons is set to snap more photos in the coming months,… Continue reading
Dec 08 NASA’s New Horizons probe wakes up in time to photograph Pluto in 2015 By Rebecca Jacobson, Inside Energy On Saturday night at 9:30 p.m. ET, an alarm clock went off for NASA’s New Horizon probe, 2.9 billion miles away from Earth. At 9:52 p.m., the piano-size spacecraft sent a message back to Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory… Continue reading
Jan 31 Watch Astronomers Debate Pluto’s Planetary Status Members of the International Astronomical Union voted in August to reclassify Pluto as a "dwarf planet." Many astronomers, however, are unhappy with the demotion -- they question its scientific validity and the way the decision was made. Continue watching
Aug 24 Watch Scientists Reclassify Pluto as ‘Dwarf Planet’ Top international astronomers voted Thursday to strip Pluto's planetary status that it has held since its discovery in 1930. The celestial object is now redefined as a "dwarf planet," leaving just eight major planets in the solar system. Continue watching
Aug 24 Pluto Demoted to ‘Dwarf Planet’ Status By PBS NewsHour After years of debate over Pluto's planetary status, the International Astronomical Union voted Thursday to classify the celestial object as a "dwarf planet," thereby shrinking the number of major planets in the solar system to eight. Continue reading
Aug 16 Watch Astronomers Offer New Vision of the Solar System Astronomers attending an international summit in Prague plan to vote next week on a new classification of Pluto-like objects that will redefine the solar system. Experts discuss the proposed solution to the long-standing debate over whether Pluto is a planet. Continue watching
Jan 19 NASA Launches Spacecraft to Explore Pluto By PBS NewsHour After two days of unexpected delays, NASA's New Horizons spacecraft took off aboard an Atlas V rocket headed towards Pluto Thursday. Continue reading