Just 6 months from now around the 14th of July, New Horizons, the fastest traveling spacecraft out there will be within the orbit of the dwarf planet Pluto. Pluto was discovered February 18th 1930 by an American astronomer by the name of Clyde Tombaugh at the Lowell Observatory in Flagstaff Arizona.
What we think we know about Pluto:
When new first discovered Pluto, we over estimated its size which led to the deeming of the title “planet”. Once time progressed an astrophysicist, Neil deGrasse Tyson, basically said that Pluto is not a planet. With that statement we end up at the three criteria that makes a planet....a planet.
1. Has to orbit the Sun
2. Has to have enough gravity to bring itself to nearly round shape
3. has "cleared" the neighborhood - basically the only thing in it's orbit around the Sun.
I would be amazed if Pluto regained it's planetary status once we reached it. Whatever happens once we get to Pluto I would be surprised.
Every article I read about Pluto has the phrase "scientists suggest" which is ok with me since Pluto is so far away. All we can do is suggest since the most detailed picture we have is this:
(and many artist's renditions of what the Pluto looks like). In the 70+ years since the discovery of Pluto, the best pictures we have are artists renditions.
Once we reach Pluto, we could find patches of ice, geysers, craters, we just do not know what to expect. The mission that New Horizons is on now is the most important mission we have ever launched. When the spacecraft reaches Pluto, it could rewrite everything we know about planetary formation. The information about the Earth's formation will come from the information we gather from studying Pluto. Watch the following documentary to learn more about the mission to Pluto!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3tu0ql1ARd8
1. Has to orbit the Sun
2. Has to have enough gravity to bring itself to nearly round shape
3. has "cleared" the neighborhood - basically the only thing in it's orbit around the Sun.
I would be amazed if Pluto regained it's planetary status once we reached it. Whatever happens once we get to Pluto I would be surprised.
Every article I read about Pluto has the phrase "scientists suggest" which is ok with me since Pluto is so far away. All we can do is suggest since the most detailed picture we have is this:
(and many artist's renditions of what the Pluto looks like). In the 70+ years since the discovery of Pluto, the best pictures we have are artists renditions.
This is the most detailed view to date
of the entire surface of the dwarf planet Pluto, as constructed from multiple
NASA Hubble Space Telescope photographs taken from 2002 to 2003. NASA's New
Horizons space probe, now halfway to Pluto, will get sharper images of Pluto
when it is six months away from a close flyby in 2015.
The possibilities that Pluto Holds:
Once we reach Pluto, we could find patches of ice, geysers, craters, we just do not know what to expect. The mission that New Horizons is on now is the most important mission we have ever launched. When the spacecraft reaches Pluto, it could rewrite everything we know about planetary formation. The information about the Earth's formation will come from the information we gather from studying Pluto. Watch the following documentary to learn more about the mission to Pluto!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3tu0ql1ARd8
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