By Paul Scott Anderson, on October 28th, 2016
Artist’s depiction of data being sent by New Horizons back to Earth. Image Credit: NASA/JHUAPL/SwRI
To say that the New Horizons mission has been a success would be a massive understatement; this first-ever spacecraft to visit Pluto has revolutionized our understanding of this distant, small world. Pluto and its moons are complex and […]
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By Paul Scott Anderson, on March 21st, 2016
High-resolution view of Pluto from New Horizons. The large smoother area of ice in Sputnik Planum is the western lobe of the “heart” feature. Image Credit: NASA/JHUAPL/SwRI
Pluto is a tiny world in the outer fringes of the Solar System; for many decades it was only a mere speck of light in even […]
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By Paul Scott Anderson, on March 6th, 2016
Methane “snow” on mountain peaks in the Cthulhu region of Pluto. The enhanced color version of the inset image is on the left and the false color version is on the right. The image covers an area 280 miles (450 kilometers) long by 140 miles (225 kilometers) wide. Image Credit: NASA/JHUAPL/SwRI
As the […]
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By Paul Scott Anderson, on February 20th, 2016
The canyons of Charon, some of which dwarf the Grand Canyon on Earth. Image Credit: NASA/JHUAPL/SwRI
One of the most surprising discoveries in recent years in the outer Solar System is that there are small moons which have oceans inside them. Jupiter’s moon Europa and Saturn’s moon Enceladus are now known to have […]
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By Paul Scott Anderson, on February 12th, 2016
Icebergs on Pluto: The large blocks of water ice float in a “sea” of nitrogen ice and are thought to have broken off from the rugged and mountainous highlands. Image Credit: NASA/JHUAPL/SwRI
Pluto is a tiny world and incredibly distant from the Sun, so it was a pleasant surprise for scientists last summer […]
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By Paul Scott Anderson, on January 29th, 2016
False-color, infrared maps of Pluto from New Horizons, showing regular detection method of water ice on the left and the more sensitive technique on the right. Image Credit: NASA/JHUIAPL/SwRI
New Horizons has shown Pluto to be a diverse world, more so than many scientists had anticipated, with tall mountain ranges, vast glaciers, a […]
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By Paul Scott Anderson, on January 11th, 2016
The vast ice plains of Sputnik Planum on Pluto. The basin, now filled with nitrogen ice, was probably created by a huge impact. Photo Credit: NASA/JHUAPL/SwRI
Instead of being little more than a frozen and unchanging rocky iceball, Pluto has been revealed to be a complex and dynamic little world, with mountains, valleys, […]
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By Paul Scott Anderson, on December 4th, 2015
New high-resolution image of Pluto from New Horizons, showing jumbled blocks in the water-ice crust, which border the smooth nitrogen-ice plains. Image Credit: NASA/JHUAPL/SwRI
The New Horizons mission has already sent back phenomenal images and data from Pluto, but it keeps getting better. New images released today are the first in a series […]
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By Paul Scott Anderson, on November 9th, 2015
Slide from the DPS meeting showing possible ice volcanoes on Pluto. Image Credit: NASA/Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory/Southwest Research Institute
Pluto is a small, cold world, but it is also turning out to be one of the most fascinating places in our Solar System – as reported today at the American Astronomical […]
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By Paul Scott Anderson, on November 8th, 2015
New Horizons has completed the four course corrections needed to send it on its way to its next target in the Kuiper Belt, 2014 MU69. Image Credit: NASA/JHUAPL/SwRI
After having completed a wildly successful flyby of Pluto and its moons, the New Horizons spacecraft was given a new target, much farther out in […]
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