OUTERPLANETS

845 articles

In exactly one year, NASA's New Horizons probe will reach Pluto
Jul 14, 2013 (UPI)
Exactly one year from today, NASA's New Horizons spacecraft will make its closest approach to the far-away dwarf planet Pluto -- the icy pseudo-planet's first m...
A Giant Moon for the Ninth Planet
Jul 10, 2013 (SPX)
This week the New Horizons mission team is celebrating the 35th anniversary of the discovery of Pluto's largest and "first" moon, Charon. This discovery was mad...
Kerberos and Styx: Welcome to the Pluto System
Jul 03, 2013 (SPX)
The names of Pluto's two smallest known moons, previously referred to as "P4" and "P5," have been formally approved by the International Astronomical Union (IAU...
New Horizons Team Sticking to Original Flight Plan at Pluto
Jun 19, 2013 (SPX)
Unless significant new hazards are found, expect NASA's New Horizons spacecraft to stay on its original course past Pluto and its moons, after mission managers ...
Planning Accelerates For Pluto Encounter
May 22, 2013 (SPX)
All exploration comes with both rewards and risks. Back in 2005 and 2006, when Pluto's second and third moons (Nix and Hydra) were discovered, searches by astro...
'Vulcan' wins Pluto moon name vote
Feb 25, 2013 (UPI)
In a voting campaign to pick names for two of Pluto's smallest moons one clear winner is "Vulcan," proposed by U.S. actor William Shatner of "Star Trek" fame. O...
Public to vote on names for Pluto moons
Feb 11, 2013 (UPI)
The U.S.-led team that discovered two new moons of the dwarf planet Pluto says they're asking the public to vote on potential names for the distant worlds. The ...
The PI's Perspective: The Seven-Year Itch
Jan 21, 2013 (SPX)
It's been seven years since New Horizons' launch on Jan. 19, 2006, and our spacecraft remains healthy and on course. We're more than halfway between the orbits ...
New Horizons Gets a New Year's Workout
Jan 15, 2013 (SPX)
Like many of us, New Horizons is starting the new year with a workout regimen. After six months of cruising quietly through the outer solar system, NASA's Pluto...
Halfway Between Uranus and Neptune, New Horizons Cruises On
Nov 30, 2012 (SPX)
Today the Pluto-bound New Horizons spacecraft passed the halfway point between the orbits of Uranus and Neptune, zooming past another milepost on its historic t...
Dwarf planet Makemake lacks atmosphere
Nov 22, 2012 (SPX)
Dwarf planet Makemake [1] is about two thirds of the size of Pluto, and travels around the Sun in a distant path that lies beyond that of Pluto but closer to th...
Keck Observations Bring Weather Of Uranus Into Sharp Focus
Oct 18, 2012 (SPX)
In 1986, when Voyager swept past Uranus, the probe's portraits of the planet were "notoriously bland," disappointing scientists, yielding few new details of the...
At Pluto, Moons and Debris May Be Hazardous to New Horizons Spacecraft During Flyby
Oct 17, 2012 (SPX)
NASA's New Horizons spacecraft is now almost seven years into its 9.5-year journey across the solar system to explore Pluto and its system of moons. Just over t...
Sharpest-ever Ground-based Images of Pluto and Charon: Proves a Powerful Tool for Exoplanet Discoveries
Sep 27, 2012 (SPX)
Despite being infamously demoted from its status as a major planet, Pluto (and its largest companion Charon) recently posed as a surrogate extrasolar planetary ...
The Kuiper Belt at 20: Paradigm Changes in Our Knowledge of the Solar System
Aug 29, 2012 (SPX)
New Horizons remains healthy and on course, now more than 24 times as far from the Sun as the Earth is. This summer's spacecraft and payload checkout went extre...
e2v To Supply Large CMOS Imaging Sensors For Imaging Kuiper Belt Objects
Aug 08, 2012 (SPX)
TAOS II will measure the size distribution of small objects (~1 km diameter) at the edge of our solar system in the Kuiper Belt and beyond. These objects are of...
Fly New Horizons through the Kuiper Belt
Aug 02, 2012 (SPX)
A new computer simulation from NASA's New Horizons mission offers a look at the latest objects discovered in the distant Kuiper Belt - from the vantage point of...
Hubble Discovers a Fifth Moon Orbiting Pluto
Jul 12, 2012 (SPX)
A team of astronomers using NASA's Hubble Space Telescope is reporting the discovery of another moon orbiting the icy dwarf planet Pluto. The moon is estimated ...
Hubble telescope spots fifth moon near Pluto
Jul 11, 2012 (AFP)
US astronomers have found a fifth moon orbiting far-away Pluto, NASA said on Wednesday. The irregular-shaped moon, nicknamed S/2012 for now, is about six to 15 ...
New Horizons Doing Science in Its Sleep
Jul 10, 2012 (SPX)
NASA's New Horizons, now almost 24 times as far from the Sun as the Earth is, is back in hibernation, a slumbering state in which it will remain until January 2...
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