Issue 17: NASA’s New Horizons Flies by Pluto

The New Horizons mission is exploring Pluto, its moons, and the distant Kuiper Belt. It has given us our very first close up look at Pluto and its largest moon Charon, both considered “ice dwarfs.” Unlike the inner rocky planets (e.g., Earth or Mars) and the gas giants (e.g., Jupiter or Saturn), Pluto and Charon’s mass is largely icy material. New Horizons seeks to learn more about how icy dwarfs fit into the solar system. Already the mission has discovered 4 new moons of Pluto! The success of this mission lies in the vast amount of new data it has gathered including incredible photos of the surface of Pluto. NASA scientists all over the country are working hard to interpret the new data that streams in daily!