'Beautiful eye candy': Frozen plains in Pluto's heart
Vast frozen plains exist next door to Pluto's big, rugged mountains sculpted of ice, scientists said Friday, three days after humanity's first-ever flyby of the dwarf planet.
Vast frozen plains exist next door to Pluto's big, rugged mountains sculpted of ice, scientists said Friday, three days after humanity's first-ever flyby of the dwarf planet.
Space Exploration
Jul 17, 2015
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An unmanned NASA spacecraft whizzed by Pluto on Tuesday, making its closest approach in the climax of a decade-long journey to explore the dwarf planet for the first time, the US space agency said.
Space Exploration
Jul 14, 2015
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The closer the New Horizons spacecraft gets to Pluto, the more puzzling the dwarf planet becomes.
Space Exploration
Jul 12, 2015
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It began as a point of light. Then, it evolved into a fuzzy orb. Now – in its latest portrait from NASA's New Horizons spacecraft – Pluto is being revealed as an intriguing new world with distinct surface features, including ...
Space Exploration
Jul 11, 2015
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Much ink has been spilled over Pluto's reclassification as a dwarf planet. And yet, such discussions have not diminished scientific interest in Earth's most distant cousin. A new study is the first to reveal fascinating details ...
Space Exploration
Jun 3, 2015
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For the first time, images from NASA's New Horizons spacecraft are revealing bright and dark regions on the surface of faraway Pluto – the primary target of the New Horizons close flyby in mid-July.
Space Exploration
Apr 29, 2015
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A new study led by Southwest Research Institute (SwRI) Planetary Scientist and Associate Vice President Dr. Alan Stern posits that the large, approximately 5-kilometer-long mounds that dominate the appearance of the larger ...
Astronomy
Oct 3, 2023
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In 2015, when NASA's New Horizons spacecraft encountered the Pluto-Charon system, the Southwest Research Institute-led science team discovered interesting, geologically active objects instead of the inert icy orbs previously ...
Astronomy
Feb 7, 2023
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Imagine walking into a room at night, turning out all the lights and closing the shades. Yet an eerie glow comes from the walls, ceiling, and floor. The faint light is barely enough to see your hands before your face, but ...
Astronomy
Dec 8, 2022
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Strange lumpy terrain on Pluto unlike anything previously observed in the solar system indicates that giant ice volcanoes were active relatively recently on the dwarf planet, scientists said on Tuesday.
Planetary Sciences
Mar 29, 2022
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