'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 team of space scientists and chemists at the University of Hawaii at Mānoa, Université Côte d'Azur and the Southwest Research Institute has found the planetesimal Arrokoth likely gets its red color from a surface rich ...
An ocean of liquid water deep beneath the icy surface of Pluto is coming into focus thanks to new calculations by Alex Nguyen, a graduate student in Earth, environmental and planetary sciences in Arts & Sciences at Washington ...
Planetary Sciences
May 21, 2024
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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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