Pluto – Page 9 – Astronomy Now

Build your own Pluto!

20 July 2015 Astronomy Now

Explore Pluto from the comfort of your own home with Greg Smye-Rumsby’s printable globe. Some assembly required!

Photographing Pluto from the UK

19 July 2015 Ade Ashford

Did you use our observing guide to view or image Pluto? Following New Horizons’ historic flyby, one budding astrophotographer living in a light-polluted UK town fulfils a long-time ambition to capture Pluto for himself.

New Horizons discovers frozen plains in Pluto’s ‘heart’

17 July 2015 Astronomy Now

A new close-up image of Pluto from New Horizons reveals a vast, craterless plain that appears to be no more than 100 million years old. This frozen region is north of Pluto’s icy mountains, in the centre-left of the heart feature, informally named “Tombaugh Regio” (Tombaugh Region) after Clyde Tombaugh, who discovered Pluto in 1930.

Close-up of Charon’s ‘Mountain in a Moat’

17 July 2015 Astronomy Now

In a tantalising preview of what the surface of Pluto’s largest moon will look like in sharper future close-ups from NASA’s New Horizons spacecraft, this image from 1.5 hours before closest approach shows a depression with a peak in the middle.

Pluto: the ice plot thickens

16 July 2015 Astronomy Now

The latest spectra from New Horizons Ralph instrument reveal an abundance of methane ice, but with striking differences from place to place across the frozen surface of Pluto. Methane ice in the dwarf planet’s north polar cap is diluted in a thick, transparent slab of nitrogen ice.

Pluto and Charon as never seen before

15 July 2015 Stephen Clark

A spectacular sampling of imagery from NASA’s New Horizons spacecraft reveals mountains and water ice bedrock on Pluto, an active crust on its largest moon Charon and the first resolved views of the icy world’s tiny mini-moons.

NASA to release new Pluto images Wednesday

15 July 2015 Stephen Clark

Scientists are crunching data for a 1900 GMT press conference Wednesday, and there is high anticipation for the release of the first close-up images from Tuesday’s historic flyby of Pluto.

Ground team receives New Horizons signal

15 July 2015 Stephen Clark

A long-awaited radio signal from NASA’s New Horizons spacecraft landed on planet Earth late Tuesday, confirming the faraway space probe performed as expected during a one-shot flyby of Pluto at the solar system’s outer frontier.

Scientists wowed by new views of ‘psychedelic’ Pluto

15 July 2015 Stephen Clark

Pluto and its Texas-sized moon Charon share an alien environment on the solar system’s outer frontier, with patches of organic ices and diverse rock types illustrated in color imagery released Tuesday.

Humanity’s first ambassador to Pluto makes historic flyby

14 July 2015 Stephen Clark

A speedy space probe barreled past Pluto for a one-shot flyby Tuesday, becoming the first spacecraft to ever visit the frozen, reddish world at the solar system’s distant frontier.