Kuiper belt

New Horizons: Live Briefing

Pete Baker on July 15, 2015, 8:10 pm

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Having survived yesterday’s fly-by, follow the live-briefing from the Nasa New Horizons mission to Pluto as they reveal the first hi-resolution images from the dwarf planet system nearly 5 billion km away. Adds The big news is that Pluto, and Charon, may still be geologically active. There are 3,500metre (11,000feet) high water-ice mountains on the surface of Pluto in a region now called Tombaugh Regio after Pluto’s discoverer, Clyde Tombaugh – some of his ashes are on-board the New Horizons …

New Horizons: Countdown to Pluto

Pete Baker on July 12, 2015, 6:32 pm

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Nasa’s New Horizons mission spacecraft is now within two days journey time to the dwarf planet Pluto and its complex system of 5 moons. [Image credit: NASA, ESA, and M. Showalter (SETI Institute)] Travelling at 14km/s, New Horizons’ swift fly-by of the dwarf planet is scheduled to take place on Tuesday 14 July, at exactly 11:49:59 GMT (12:49:59 BST; 07:49:59 EDT), when it will be a mere 12,500km from the surface. At a distance of 4.7 billion km, New …

Dwarf Planet Gains Fifth Moon…

Pete Baker on July 17, 2012, 8:08 pm

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Not that it didn’t already have five moons. At least. ANYhoo… As I was saying this time last year, when Hubble spotted a fourth moon orbiting Pluto. The Hubble Space Telescope has been looking at the twin dwarf planet system of Pluto and Charon ahead of Nasa’s New Horizons mission expected arrival in the neighbourhood in 2015. [Image credit: NASA, ESA, and M. Showalter (SETI Institute)] They’ve already mapped the surface of Pluto, to an extent, and now they’ve spotted a …