Pluto Press Conference

Summary: It has been hard to miss the news of New Horizons flying past Pluto and getting beautiful images and data to send back to Earth. It has been harder to keep up with the constant flood of data that is pouring out. NASA has thankfully given a press conference and has published the highlights online.

Personally I am most overjoyed that they have nicknamed the dark spot on the top of Charon Mordor but I also love hearing about the giant ice cliffs. I will point you straight toward the mission site though to get all of the highlights.

If you have access to BBC, their program Sky at Night will be doing a big recap of all the news and what it means on the night of the 20th.


BBC News

Pluto through the years Credit: NASA

Astronomical Updates

Highest Quality image of Ceres:
Ceres, the 950-km wide dwarf planet has a new image that is clearer than ever before. The resolution beats that of Hubble's image of Ceres. The cool thing is the image quality can only improve as Dawn approaches.

BBC News


New Horizons setting it's sights on Pluto:
The New Horizons probe will be zooming by Pluto on July 14th of this year but before it reaches the planet, it must start taking images to calibrate it's instruments and check its trajectory. The first images, with Pluto only as a tiny speck, should be released this week. Researchers are hoping that this mission will reveal many surprises about Pluto including new moons and possible rings.

BBC News


Large Asteroid and it's Moon:
The asteroid 2004 BL 86 was seen with a moon as it passed relatively close to Earth. The asteroid itself is 325m wide and it's moon is 70m wide.

BBC News

Vulcan moon

Summary: Recently discovered moons of Pluto are currently undergoing the naming process. There has been a public vote that will be taken into account when the official name is chosen. The current leader in the poll is Vulcan, the name of Spock's home planet in the popular "Star Trek" series. The vote for this name is being lead by William Shatner who played Captain Kirk in the same show.
Personally, I am keeping my fingers crossed and am very hopeful that it will be chosen.


BBC News: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-21526436