Bruce Betts • February 11, 2014
Take a tour of the Solar System in the video of class 1 of Bruce Betts' Introduction to Planetary Science and Astronomy class.
Bruce Betts • February 05, 2014
Our own Dr. Bruce Betts is once again teaching his Introduction to Planetary Science and Astronomy college course online. Come join him.
Ted Stryk • January 23, 2014
Ted Stryk reports on the status of the New Horizons mission from the mission's latest Science Team Meeting.
Mat Kaplan • October 08, 2013
This week's Planetary Radio features artist Jon Lomberg inviting listeners to join the New Horizons Message Initiative.
Emily Lakdawalla • September 06, 2013
Just four months ago I posted about a paper recently published by Leslie Young and coauthors that described three possible scenarios for Pluto's atmosphere. Yesterday, Cathy Olkin, Leslie Young, and coauthors posted a preprint on arXiv that says that only one of those scenarios can be true. And it's a surprising one. The title of their paper says it all: "Pluto's atmosphere does not collapse."
Alan Stern • August 24, 2013
New Horizons has just completed a summer of intensive activities and entered hibernation on Aug. 20. The routine parts of the activities included thorough checkouts of all our backup systems (result: they work fine!) and of all our scientific instruments (they work fine too!).
Emily Lakdawalla • August 16, 2013
In which the fifth graders of Kipp Heartwood Academy argue the competing sides in the is-Pluto-a-planet debate through the medium of rap.
Emily Lakdawalla • August 02, 2013
Does Pluto have an ocean under its ice? If it doesn't now, did it ever have one? How will we know?
Emily Lakdawalla • July 30, 2013
Last Thursday at the Pluto Science Conference there was a surprising and interesting talk by Amanda Zangari, who pointed out a serious problem with Pluto cartography.
Mat Kaplan • July 30, 2013
This week's Planetary Radio features the new indy film that relies on the best available science to create a thrilling and inspiring human mission to Jupiter's moon.
Bill Dunford • July 29, 2013
Pushing back the frontier, and filling in the blank spaces on the map.
Emily Lakdawalla • July 24, 2013
My roundup from notes on the day's presentations on dust in the Pluto system and the surfaces and interiors of Pluto and Charon.
Casey Dreier • July 22, 2013
The New Horizons mission to Pluto survived many near-death encounters with cancellation during its development. The Planetary Society worked the whole time to ensure it would launch.
Emily Lakdawalla • July 15, 2013
Pluto's moons, formerly known as "P4" and "P5," are now named Kerberos and Styx; I thought I'd help place them into context with a little help from Cassini. Also, Neptune now has a 14th known moon.
Alan Stern • May 17, 2013
Back in 2005 and 2006, when Pluto’s second and third moons (Nix and Hydra) were discovered, searches by astronomers for still more moons didn’t reveal any. So the accidental discovery of Pluto’s fourth moon by the Hubble Space Telescope in mid-2011 raised the possibility that the hazards in the Pluto system might be greater than previously anticipated.
Emily Lakdawalla • May 02, 2013
New Horizons might see a Pluto with a northern polar cap, a southern polar cap, or both caps, according to work by Leslie Young.
Emily Lakdawalla • February 18, 2013
Last week, I posted an explainer on why Hubble's images of galaxies show so much more detail than its images of Pluto. Then I set you all a homework problem: when will New Horizons be able to see Pluto better than Hubble does? Here's the answer.
Emily Lakdawalla • February 14, 2013
How come Hubble's pictures of galaxies billions of light years away are so beautifully detailed, yet the pictures of Pluto, which is so much closer, are just little blobs? I get asked this question, or variations of it, a lot. Here's an explainer.
Emily Lakdawalla • February 11, 2013
The discoverers of Pluto's fourth and fifth moons are inviting the public to vote on (and write in candidates for) their formal names. Voting closes in two weeks.
Mat Kaplan • November 27, 2012
The New Horizons Pluto mission PI provides an update, and introduces his new public project called Uwingu.
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