Monthly Archives: July 2012

Pluto’s Fifth Moon

Poor little Pluto! Every third-grader’s favorite planet got officially downgraded to a “dwarf planet” in 2006, and nothing’s been the same since. Although planetary scientists have known for more than 20 years that Pluto is just one of the larger of the objects comprising the Kuiper Belt, in the public’s mind those same scientists were [...]

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Snapshots From Mars

Remember this picture? To my mind this is one of the most amazing images in the history of planetary exploration. It shows the Mars Phoenix lander descending under a parachute to the surface of Mars in 2008, and was taken from orbit by the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter. The lander is actually much closer to the [...]

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