In 2015, the New Horizons space probe discovered spectacular snowcapped mountains on Pluto, which are strikingly similar to mountains on Earth. Such a landscape had never before been observed elsewhere in the Solar System. ...
Space Exploration
Oct 13, 2020
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426
Planetary scientist Dr. Helen Maynard-Casely and associates have reported for the first time how solid methane and nitrogen expand in response to temperature changes and resolved an historic ambiguity relating to the structure ...
Space Exploration
Aug 6, 2020
5
274
Five years ago today, NASA's New Horizons spacecraft made history. After a voyage of nearly 10 years and more than 3 billion miles, the intrepid piano-sized probe flew within 7,800 miles of Pluto. For the first time ever, ...
Space Exploration
Jul 15, 2020
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64
The accretion of new material during Pluto's formation may have generated enough heat to create a liquid ocean that has persisted beneath an icy crust to the present day, despite the dwarf planet's orbit far from the sun ...
Space Exploration
Jun 22, 2020
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2231
When the New Horizons spacecraft passed by Pluto in 2015, one of the many fascinating features its images revealed was that this small, frigid world in the distant solar system has a hazy atmosphere. Now, new data helps explain ...
Space Exploration
May 14, 2020
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Ninety years ago today, Clyde Tombaugh, a young astronomer working at Lowell Observatory in Flagstaff, Arizona, discovered Pluto. In doing so he unknowingly opened the door to the vast "third zone" of the solar system we ...
Space Exploration
Feb 19, 2020
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38
A "beating heart" of frozen nitrogen controls Pluto's winds and may give rise to features on its surface, according to a new study.
Space Exploration
Feb 4, 2020
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NASA has funded Southwest Research Institute to study the important attributes, feasibility and cost of a possible future Pluto orbiter mission. This study will develop the spacecraft and payload design requirements and make ...
Space Exploration
Oct 30, 2019
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70
Pluto was discovered in 1930 by astronomer Clyde Tombaugh. For decades, not much detail was known about the erstwhile planet. We assumed it was a frozen, dormant world.
Space Exploration
Oct 28, 2019
1
191
Many of the craters of Mars and Pluto feature relatively small ice islands unattached to their polar ice caps.
Space Exploration
Sep 24, 2019
0
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