- Included in the Other Scientific Posts List.
- Today is when the New Horizons spacecraft makes its fly-by past Pluto. This is an unbelievable shot of Pluto with its largest moon Charon.
Martin Winfree
July 14, 2015
Now this is some kind of cool. Today is when the New Horizons spacecraft makes its fly-by past Pluto. This is an unbelievable shot of Pluto with its largest moon Charon; before now, they have just been blurry whitish dots.
Betty Northcott Snitzer
So is Pluto now a planet again? Whew, what a relief.
Martin Winfree
No, Pluto is still classed as a “dwarf planet”; however, now that they have gotten a lot closer, NASA realizes that Pluto is bigger than they thought it was, so it might regain its status as the largest known body in the “Kuiper Belt”. Pluto is the only Kuiper Belt body known to have moons (5 of them). Actually the moon Charon shown above is one of the largest known bodies also. Pluto is looking more special all the time, so who knows what the future holds for this wonderful place. BTW, this is an actual photo, not an artist’s rendering or something like that.
George Konstantinow
In the Boomer Lexicon, there will ALWAYS be NINE planets in the solar system – no more, no less . . . (It has to be so, you know. Think of all the expenditures in time and papier-mâché!)
Michael Stafford
George, the amount of papier-mache was minimal; Pluto is a small planet.
Martin Winfree
. . . and there will always be 12 moons around Jupiter, 9 around Saturn, 5 around Uranus, and 2 around Neptune. 🙂