Today is a truly historic day for Space Exploration, because the Interplanetary Probe New Horizons has finally flown very close to the distant Dwarf Planet Pluto after traveling for more than nine years all the way from Earth.
Within a few hours from now, we'll be receiving information and high definition photographs of Pluto for the first time ever. The dwarf planet had always been a mystery, but now it joins all the other planets that have been visited by a Probe in order to gather precise information about them.
So far, we already know some very curious facts about Pluto that we didn't know before:
1- Pluto is a little larger than we thought, with a diameter of 2370 kilometers.
2- Pluto turns out to be a reddish orange world.
3- Curiously, Pluto features a great, white and heart-shaped landmark on its surface.
4- There is Methane Ice in Pluto.
5- It could actually be snowing there!
New Horizons carries the ashes of Clyde Tombaugh, the Discoverer of Pluto.
For now, it remains unknown whether the spaceship has survived because there was a possibility that it could collide with ice or rock particles as it drew closer to the Plutonian system. We'll have to wait a little more to receive the latest transmissions, but most likely everything will be fine.
I am quite happy and excited because of this =)
Within a few hours from now, we'll be receiving information and high definition photographs of Pluto for the first time ever. The dwarf planet had always been a mystery, but now it joins all the other planets that have been visited by a Probe in order to gather precise information about them.
So far, we already know some very curious facts about Pluto that we didn't know before:
1- Pluto is a little larger than we thought, with a diameter of 2370 kilometers.
2- Pluto turns out to be a reddish orange world.
3- Curiously, Pluto features a great, white and heart-shaped landmark on its surface.
4- There is Methane Ice in Pluto.
5- It could actually be snowing there!
New Horizons carries the ashes of Clyde Tombaugh, the Discoverer of Pluto.
For now, it remains unknown whether the spaceship has survived because there was a possibility that it could collide with ice or rock particles as it drew closer to the Plutonian system. We'll have to wait a little more to receive the latest transmissions, but most likely everything will be fine.
I am quite happy and excited because of this =)