BellaOnline Forums Education Astronomy New Horizons is nearing Pluto

New Horizons is now close enough to Pluto to reveal bright and dark regions on its surface including possibly a polar cap. Its large moon Charon was also captured, but the exposures weren't long enough to catch any of Pluto's tiny moons. The probe will be at its closest to Pluto in mid-July and space scientists are quite excited about how they may learn from this mission.

Pluto family photo from New Horizons. The spacecraft has finally photographed the two tiniest moons, Kerberos and Styx, having already spotted Charon, Hydra and Nix some while ago. But as it gets closer, it's just possible that there may be some small, faint moons that have never been seen from Earth. Stay tuned!

Oh wow!!! Very cool - though it was hard to tell what I was looking at LOL.

I was so sad when Pluto was demoted - it will always be a planet in my heart - a wee one, but a planet none the less

Deanne, I had trouble figuring out what I was supposed to be seeing, too.

Well, as for the "demotion" here's what Ceres has to say about that. LOL.

The National Space Society has made a lovely little video about New Horizons and its part in the exploration of the Solar System. It's only about two minutes long, worth a look.

I hope you had a look at the Space Society's splendid video about New Horizons. Here is an infographic from NASA about the New Horizons encounter with Pluto.

Here is a video called Oh Pluto! full of greetings to Pluto, accompanied by a song composed by folk musician Craig Werth. The song underscores how we want to “grow our understanding, to learn all that we can.”

It wasn't easy discovering tiny Pluto so far away from the Sun.

But noticing Pluto's moon Charon took almost another fifty years. On June 22, 1978 James Christie at the US Naval Observatory in Washington DC spotted it on photographic plates. Interestingly, the plates were taken in Flagstaff, Arizona – though not at the Lowell Observatory where Clyde Tombaugh discovered Pluto.

Charon is about half the diameter of Pluto. Some people think they should be considered a double (dwarf) planet rather than planet and moon. Charon is larger than Ceres, which is the largest asteroid and the only rocky dwarf planet. (NASA's Dawn mission is currently orbiting Ceres.)

We'll know a lot more about Charon in a few weeks.

It's the latest color image of Pluto - taken on July 3, 2015. It shows four mysterious dark spots.

But New Horizons is now only a week away from its closest fly-by of Pluto and its system, so maybe we'll see what they are. Certainly, we'll know a lot more about Pluto than ever before, but it's safe to say that we'll be left with lots of new questions too.

Excitement at NASA as New Horizons nears Pluto. Here's the latest image of Pluto latest image of Pluto - released less than 24 hours ago. Still fuzzy, but more interesting than the very indistinct ones of the past.