Ice Volcanoes Discovered on Pluto?Icy volcanoes may lie on the southern rim of Pluto's frozen heart. Images from NASA's New Horizons spacecraft have identified two peaks that tower nearly 4 miles high over the surface of the dwarf planet, and scientists say the peaks' physical features suggest they might be volcanoes. Oliver White, a New Horizons postdoctoral researcher with NASA's Ames Research Center in California, said on Monday, "These are two really extraordinary features. Nothing like this has ever been seen in the solar system." As of now, Scientists don't yet know what could be generating the heat inside Pluto necessary to create a volcano on the surface.
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Fast and Light to PlutoOn July 14, 2015, the New Horizons spacecraft will zip past Pluto and its five known moons. Nobody really knows what it will find.
Produced by: Dennis Overbye, Jason Drakeford and Jonathan Corum
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Pluto rotation movieRotation movie of Pluto based on images from NASA's New Horizons spacecraft up to and including an image obtained when the spacecraft was 738,000 km from Pluto.
Source mages: NASA/JHU-APL/SwRI
Image processing: Björn Jónsson
Pluto's Spinning MoonsMost inner moons in the solar system keep one face pointed toward their central planet; this animation shows that certainly isn’t the case with the small moons of Pluto, which behave like spinning tops. Pluto is shown at center with, in order, from smaller to wider orbit: Charon, Styx, Nix, Kerberos, Hydra.
Credit: NASA/JHUAPL/SwRI/Mark Showalter
Pluto Is Unexpectedly Large - New Horizons Mission | Video UpdateInvestigation of imagery and other data from the approaching probe reveal Pluto to be larger than previous estimates. Principal investigator Alan Stern explains the implications on ice composition, rock estimates, and atmospheric composition. ---- Full StorY: http://goo.gl/ZptciN
Pluto at Last! NASA Spacecraft Arrives for Dwarf Planet Close-Up Tuesday: http://goo.gl/YVocJz
NASA/JHUAPL/SwRI/Pluto color image enhanced by Kevin M. Gill/Edited by Space.com's @SteveSpaleta
NASA’s New Horizons Team Reveals New Scientific Findings on PlutoDuring a July 24 science update at NASA headquarters, new surprising imagery and science results were revealed from the recent flyby of Pluto, by the New Horizons spacecraft. These included an image from the Long Range Reconnaissance Imager or (LORRI) – looking back at Pluto – hours after the historic flyby that shows haze in the planet’s sunlit atmosphere, that extends as high as 80 miles above Pluto’s surface – much higher than expected. Models suggest that the hazes form when ultraviolet sunlight breaks apart methane gas.
LORRI images also show evidence that exotic ices have flowed – and may still be flowing across Pluto’s surface, similar to glacial movement on Earth. This unpredicted sign of present-day geologic activity was detected in Sputnik Planum – an area in the western part of Pluto’s heart-shaped Tombaugh Regio.
Additionally, new compositional data from New Horizons’ Ralph instrument indicate that the center of Sputnik Planum is rich in nitrogen, carbon monoxide, and methane ices.
The Year of Pluto - New Horizons Documentary Brings Humanity Closer to the Edge of the Solar SystemNew Horizons is the first mission to the Kuiper Belt, a gigantic zone of icy bodies and mysterious small objects orbiting beyond Neptune. This region also is known as the “third” zone of our solar system, beyond the inner rocky planets and outer gas giants. Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory (APL) in Maryland, designed, built and operates the New Horizons spacecraft, and manages the mission for NASA’s Science Mission Directorate in Washington. The Year of Pluto - NASA New Horizons is a one hour documentary which takes on the hard science and gives us answers to how the mission came about and why it matters. Interviews with Dr. James Green, John Spencer, Fran Bagenal, Mark Showalter and others share how New Horizons will answer many questions. New Horizons is part of the New Frontiers Program, managed by NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama.
