Space.comTopic:
Latest Discoveries About Pluto, the Dwarf Planet
Pluto, originally considered the ninth planet, was recently classified as a dwarf planet and is the least massive planet in the solar system.
7
Visions of a volcanic plume spewing out of Jupiter’s moon Io and a swirling storm were among the first images returned by a NASA probe as it approached an early-morning swing past the gas giant today.
A NASA probe hurtling towards Pluto will hit the accelerator next month when it flies past the planetary giant Jupiter.
NASA’s New Horizons probe bound for Pluto is headed for a Jupiter flyby, its camera eyes wide open, in preparation for its swing out towards the fringe of the solar system.
BOULDER, Colorado -- Now heading outward on its lengthy trek to tiny Pluto, NASA’s New Horizons spacecraft is on course to zip by gigantic Jupiter early next year.
A NASA spacecraft hurtling away from Earth has caught the first glimpse of its distant destination: the dwarf planet Pluto.
The Great Pluto War in Prague failed to forge an accepted definition, but it succeeded in alienating astronomers and deepening rifts along theoretical and national lines.
Space.com explains information about the planet Pluto.
Pluto may be no more than a distant, icy rock in the minds of astronomers who stripped it of planethood, but its downgrade to a "dwarf planet'' has created a teachable moment in classrooms nationwide.
NASA's New Horizons probe, bound for Pluto, snapped an image of Jupiter that astronomers said serves as a promise of what's to come early next year when the craft nears the gas giant planet.
Pluto has been given a new name that reflects its new status as a dwarf planet.
In an interview with SPACE.com, the new IAU president discusses the controversies surrounding the agency.
A resolution in California calls the International Astronomical Union mean-spirited.
Defenders of Pluto as a planet rallied at New Mexico State University last week, joined by the wife and son of Pluto's discoverer, Clyde Tombaugh.
NASA's Pluto-bound New Horizons spacecraft has snapped its first high-resolution photo, an image of distant stars that shows the probe's high-resolution camera works.
If you did not like Pluto's demotion, don't give up hope. Arguments over the newly approved definition for "planet" are likely to continue at least until 2009, and astronomers say there is much that remains to be clarified and refined.
Text books aside, there are hundreds if not thousands of products that were or are now on the market that include Pluto as the ninth planet of the solar system.
Not only does it leave NASA with a robotic mission en route to an "unplanet," astronomers are wondering what names will be given to all the little round objects in the outer solar system, decisions that will force changes in textbooks and curricula.
The IAU proposed a new definition for planets would have brought the the tally to 12. It was defeated.
7
