The cosmic optical background (COB) is the visible light emitted by all sources outside of the Milky Way. This faint glow of light, which can only be observed using very precise and sophisticated telescopes, could help astrophysics ...
Only the two Voyager spacecraft have ever been there, and it took than more than 30 years of supersonic travel. It lies well past the orbit of Pluto, through the rocky Kuiper belt, and on for four times that distance. This ...
Astronomy
Oct 31, 2020
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Scientists have discovered dunes on Pluto, and say they are likely to have been formed of methane ice grains released into its rarefied atmosphere.
Space Exploration
May 31, 2018
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The gas composition of a planet's atmosphere generally determines how much heat gets trapped in the atmosphere. For the dwarf planet Pluto, however, the predicted temperature based on the composition of its atmosphere was ...
Space Exploration
Nov 15, 2017
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Beneath Pluto's "heart" lies a cold, slushy ocean of water ice, according to data from NASA's New Horizons mission. In a paper published today in the journal Nature, the New Horizons team, including researchers from MIT, ...
Space Exploration
Nov 16, 2016
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In June 2015, when the cameras on NASA's approaching New Horizons spacecraft first spotted the large reddish polar region on Pluto's largest moon, Charon, mission scientists knew two things: they'd never seen anything like ...
Space Exploration
Sep 14, 2016
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565
As New Horizons flew by Pluto, it recorded spectacular images of the icy world's surface using the LORRI and MVIC cameras. It recorded the plasma and dust environments with the PEPSSI, SWAP, and SDC instruments. But one instrument, ...
Space Exploration
Dec 27, 2015
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NASA's New Horizons spacecraft has sent back the first in a series of the sharpest views of Pluto it obtained during its July flyby – and the best close-ups of Pluto that humans may see for decades.
Space Exploration
Dec 4, 2015
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University of Maryland astronomers Silvia Protopapa and Douglas Hamilton are among the authors of the first published paper from the New Horizons flyby, which appears in the Oct. 16, 2015 issue of the journal Science. Protopapa ...
Space Exploration
Oct 15, 2015
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(Phys.org)—NASA's New Horizons mission, as the name suggests, is all about broadening our scientific horizons. The spacecraft, visiting the unexplored world of dwarf planet Pluto and its moons, continues to deliver more ...
