Pluto Case Study

Pluto is unlike the other planets in that it has an icy surface instead of a rocky surface, like the inner 4 (terrestrial) planets, or a deep atmosphere, like the next 4 (gas giant) planets.

The mission called the New Horizons created a spacecraft, which is nuclear-powered and had the capability of gathering 10 times the data for scientific research. Another factor that led to the New Horizons mission to be the winner is that it only costed $250 million dollars. The New Horizons mission sent a spacecraft on February 2, 2006 and which is expected to will flyby Pluto by the year 2015. Astronomers were able to find three Kuiper Belt objects that are significant for New Horizons mission. The principal investigator of the New Horizons, Alan Stern stated,“ Astronomer Gerard Kuiper, who wrote a paper in 1951 about smaller objects that were farther away

Neil DeGrasse Tyson wrote The Pluto Files: The Rise and Fall of America’s Favorite Planet to examine why Pluto ought not to be considered a planetary body and instead a dwarf planet or Kuiper Belt Object.

In the outer limits of our solar system there is a planet unlike any other, Pluto. Pluto was discovered in February of 1930 by an American astronomer, Clyde Tombaugh. It is the only planet to have been discovered by an American. All though we have known of the existence of Pluto for over thirty years now, there are still many mysteries surrounding this celestial body. Being the farthest planet has made it difficult to study Pluto, Adding to the obscurity of this strange planet is that the capability to send spacecraft such distances has never been achieved. Through the wonders of science and astronomy, there are many things that can be determined, concluded, and hypothesized about this obscure planet.

This places the new planet more or less in the Kuiper Belt, a dark realm beyond Neptune where

Pluto was discovered by a man named Clyde Tombaugh, an american astronomer. Pluto got its name by the Roman god of the underworld. Pluto has only 5 planets and is the second dwarf planet from the sun. They explored/visited in

The discussion about Pluto’s status in our solar system is still in question. The definition of a planet is changing as society advances and as time passes. We used to believe that Pluto was a planet which orbits the sun, but in a weird way since it’s orbit is quite odd compared to other planets in our solar system. Pluto is different such that, it has five moons and crosses Neptune’s orbit. Not only does it do that, it is quite small in contrast to the other celestial body in our solar system. As society advances, we question the definition of a planet and Pluto’s status in our solar system. Our crave for knowledge and curiosity about what’s around us motivates us to explore the unknown. Our desire to learn more is due to the fact that people

Pluto was discovered in 1930 by Clyde W. Tombaugh and was reclassified as a dwarf planet in 2006. This means that for almost eighty years, all of mankind knew that Pluto was a planet. The real trouble for Pluto came in 1992 when David Jewitt and Jane Luu discovered the first celestial objects in a region now called the Kuiper Belt (Weintraub, 2015). Pluto is considered one of the largest celestial objects in the belt (Redd, 2012). However, there are some objects in

This article relates to the upcoming lab because it talks about "ice volcanoes," and we will be talking about volcanoes during the next lab session. In general, volcanoes are an incredibly interesting thing to think about because they are mountains that erupt lava, hot vapor, rock fragments, etc. Ice volcanoes are an even more fascinating thing to think about because I was not aware that they even existed; the possibility that they might exist on Pluto is insane. Although the two mountains that have been seen on Pluto might not be ice volcanoes, it's still compelling to think that they might be, especially since they have "depressions similar to volcanoes found on Mars and Earth." This article does not affect me directly, but this discovery might help scientists get more of an understanding of what Pluto might look like in the future.

The lab report this week required us to research the New Horizons mission that is still going on today. We were asked to list some information about the mission, what it hopes to learn and what we’ve learned from Pluto and its surroundings thus far. Personally, I was able to watch the live briefing and seen the first photos released of the dwarf planet in July and I am anticipating the next year of information we we’ll receive. Since the closest passing we have learned numerous insights about Pluto and its moons that were previously unknown. As the world waits patiently to discover more and more as the year of data comes in, we know that this is a giant leap in planetary exploration.

Once, Pluto was considered the ninth and most distant planet from our sun. Pluto was discovered by an American astronomer name Clyde Tombaugh in 1930. But before being discovered, an American astronomer name Percival Lowell was actually the first to caught hints of Pluto’s existence in 1905. He suggested that there was another world’s gravity that was tugging at the two planets, Neptune and Uranus, from beyond. It turns out that there was another planet, the smallest and ninth planet from the sun, Pluto. The now dwarf planet was named by an 11 year old girl from Oxford, England whose name was Venetia Katharine Douglas Phair or Venetia Burney. The astronomer did predict the planet’s location in 1915, but unfortunately he died without finding

Pluto is beautiful. Whatever its status: planet or not, New Horizons’ recent flight by the littlest “planet” confirmed that the dwarf has a lot of “heart”; and over the next 16 months, images will pour in from New Horizons to an expectant audience. Even the few pictures received thus far have caused “hoorays!” from scientists who have gathered more intel about Pluto than ever before.

The present unknow ninth planet was discovered in 1930, pluto is the second smallest planet from the solar system and most massive dwarf planet. Pluto down to the newly created classification of ¨dwarf planet.¨ There are still many objects with similar size and mass to pluto jostling around its orbit. The dwarf planet Pluto is named for the ancient Roman god of the underworld. In Roman mythology, Pluto was the son of Saturn who, with his three brothers, controlled the world: Jupiter controlled the sky, Neptune controlled the sea, and Pluto ruled the underworld.

While modern science has currently stripped Pluto of its title as one of the planets of our solar system it is my belief that one day it could reclaim its title. As a planet is currently defined it has to have cleared its orbit of obstructions which is the reasoning for why Pluto has as of now lost its title, it has yet to finish clearing its orbital path. However, over time it is entirely possible that it will and at that point in time it could once again be considered the planet it has always been. There is also the alternative chance that the definition of a planet could be changed into something more inclusive that would reinstate Pluto to its rightful throne. This second possibility would

New Horizons still has many years of fuel and power. It will continue its more-than-10-year mission, exploring the primordial material of the Kuiper Belt. When asked by a young person what the mission will do now that the big event of the Pluto flyby has happened, five-time space shuttle astronaut Grunsfeld said the interplanetary spacecraft will—in a nod to Star Trek—“go where no New Horizons spacecraft has gone before.”