Pluto Not Yet Explored
Credit & Copyright: NASA,
JPL,
Michael W. Carroll
Explanation:
Cold, distant, Pluto is the only planet in our Solar System which
has not been visited by a spacecraft from Earth.
The story goes that the legend
"
Pluto Not Yet Explored" on a
US postal stamp
depicting the tiny, mysterious world inspired a JPL employee
to develop plans for a Pluto flyby. These plans evolved into the current
"Pluto Express" mission intended for launch early in the next decade.
The type of small, high-tech spacecraft proposed
is depicted above in an artist's vision approaching
Pluto's mottled surface. A tenuous, transient atmosphere is visible as
blue haze beyond the bright limb
while Pluto's companion Charon looms in the distance.
Images and data from such a mission would be an incredible
boon to those
studying these bizarre, inaccessible worlds as evidence mounts that
Pluto itself is only the largest of many small ice dwarf
mini-planets. Some have dubbed the yet unexplored
Pluto-Charon system the last "astronomers' planet".
Note:
Pluto's discoverer, astronomer Clyde Tombaugh, celebrated his
90th birthday on February 4.
Authors & editors:
Robert Nemiroff
(MTU) &
Jerry Bonnell
(USRA)
NASA Web Site Statements, Warnings,
and Disclaimers
NASA Official: Jay Norris.
Specific
rights apply.
A service of:
LHEA at
NASA /
GSFC
& Michigan Tech. U.
