It takes 248 years for Pluto to orbit the Sunday.
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Mars’ Curiosity rover found evidence that the red planet has an Earth-like continental crust. “Not only that, there’s higher resolution photos … and we’ll have even more detail than what is here”.
For the first time ever we’re able to plumb the depths of the farthest reaches of our Solar System in high-definition glory, revealing a ton of new secrets about the dwarf planet as well as a multitude of pictures and information.
Instead, New Horizons revealed that the surface of Pluto has somehow been refreshed, activity that may be tied to an underground ocean, ice volcanoes or other geologic phenomenon that gives off heat.
But we may not have seen the last of the MIPS R3000, as depending on the upcoming performance of the probe it may be assigned another mission.
NASA’s New Horizons craft, flew about 7,800 miles above Pluto’s surface for its closest pass of the tiny planet; and as New Horizons finishes its more than 3-billion-mile journey to Pluto, it extends humanity’s reach into the universe.
“Pluto and its moons comprise a planetary system that is every bit warranting as being classified as a planet“, said the professor.
When Pluto was first reliably spotted moving against the darkness of space, mankind was closer to the invention of heaver-than-air flight than it was to putting a man on the moon.
IImage of Pluto from the Long Range Reconnaissance Imager (LORRI) aboard NASA’s New Horizons spacecraft, taken on July 13, 2015 when the spacecraft was 476,000 miles (768,000 kilometers) from the surface. But the “dull” part was crossed out this week thanks to the latest pictures from the New Horizons probe that left NASA scientists giddily throwing around words like “amazing” and “mind-blowing”. The dwarf planet’s newly discovered “heart” region is clearly visible. More stunning for scientists was that Pluto’s largest moon, Charon, was unmarked by craters. The New Horizons team hopes to go after a smaller Kuiper Belt object following the Pluto flyby, provided a mission extension is approved.
What Tyson was getting at was the sheer size of Pluto. And it turns out the not-quite planet also has a very big sentimental side.
Tune in to Science Friday on July 17 for an update on the New Horizons mission.
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“Pluto’s kind of the belle of the ball”, said Stern.
