Related topics: spacecraft · solar system

How a moon slows the decay of Pluto's atmosphere

Pluto's relationship with its moon Charon is one of the more unusual interactions in the solar system due to Charon's size and proximity. It's more than half of Pluto's diameter and orbits only 12,000 or so miles away. To ...

Research identifies icy ridges on Pluto

Using a model similar to what meteorologists use to forecast weather on Earth and a computer simulation of the physics of evaporating ices, a new study published in the journal, Nature by York University's Professor John ...

Could there be life in Pluto's ocean?

Pluto is thought to possess a subsurface ocean, which is not so much a sign of water as it is a tremendous clue that other dwarf planets in deep space also may contain similarly exotic oceans, naturally leading to the question ...

Pluto's 'heart' sheds light on a possible buried ocean

Ever since NASA's New Horizons spacecraft flew by Pluto last year, evidence has been mounting that the dwarf planet may have a liquid ocean beneath its icy shell. Now, by modeling the impact dynamics that created a massive ...

Shedding light on Pluto's glaciers

What is the origin of the large heart-shaped nitrogen glacier revealed in 2015 on Pluto by the New Horizons spacecraft? Two researchers from the Laboratoire de météorologie dynamique (CNRS/École polytechnique/UPMC/ENS ...

X-ray detection sheds new light on Pluto

Scientists using NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory have made the first detections of X-rays from Pluto. These observations offer new insight into the space environment surrounding the largest and best-known object in the solar ...

New data compare, contrast Pluto's icy moons

A newly downlinked spectral observation of Pluto's moon Nix from NASA's New Horizons spacecraft provides compelling evidence that its surface is covered in water ice, similar to what the New Horizons team discovered recently ...

The jagged shores of Pluto's highlands

This enhanced color view from NASA's New Horizons spacecraft zooms in on the southeastern portion of Pluto's great ice plains, where at lower right the plains border rugged, dark highlands informally named Krun Macula. (Krun ...

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