New Horizons Discovering Pluto

Pluto has been in the news for a number of reasons of late, not the least of which was being deprived of its planet status. Those who consider it to be the ninth planet are mad at the body of astronomers who have demoted Pluto to a dwarf planet status.

There is a lot we do not know about Pluto. Some trivia we have been able to glean from a distance including the fact that a day on Pluto will be equivalent to six and a half earth days. We expect it to be covered in ice and have extremely cold temperatures on the surface. However there has been little actual evidence to support these opinions.

The New Horizons space craft from NASA is on a historic mission to help us understand the planet Pluto better. It has recently begun its six month fly past of Pluto and will be sending home images that will exceed the resolution of the Hubble Telescope based images of Pluto that we currently have.

As the planet reveals its secrets over the next six months, scientists will be eagerly studying all the new data that is revealed in this science project. Perhaps now we will actually know what Pluto is all about instead of merely making informed guesses.