Discovery of Pluto by Clyde Tombaugh on February 18, 1930. The object moved, the background stars...
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Discovery of Pluto by Clyde Tombaugh on February 18, 1930. The object moved, the background stars did not. Lick Observatory images are 1 day apart
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Transcript of Discovery of Pluto by Clyde Tombaugh on February 18, 1930. The object moved, the background stars...
Discovery of Pluto by Clyde Tombaugh on February 18, 1930. The object moved, the background stars did not. Lick Observatory images are 1 day
apart
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Pluto (diameter ~ 2320 km; surface T = - 390° F) and its moon Charon imaged by the Hubble Space Telescope
Charon was discovered in 1978 and is ~ 1,200 km in diameter
Pat Rawlings conception of the Pluto-Charon binary-planet system (left-front = Charon; right-back = Pluto)
Relative sizes of Pluto, Charon, and the US. Pluto is 2,320 km and Charon ~ 1,200 km in diameter
Pluto’s unusual orbitIt is steeply inclined (17°) and highly eccentric (0.25). At times, Pluto’s orbit
reaches inside that of Neptune
The New Horizons Mission – the race to catch the atmosphere of Pluto before it freezes in ~2015
Launch January 19, 2006
(Jupiter fly-by February 2007)
Pluto encounter in July 2015
