Chipping Away at a Mysterious Iceball.
Rebecca Johnson.
- Star Date, 2005.
- SIRS Enduring Issues 2006. Article 47, Science, 1522-3264; .
Articles Contained in SIRS Enduring Issues 2006. Originally Published: Chipping Away at a Mysterious Iceball, March/April 2005; pp. 4-9.
"By 1930, astronomers had been searching for 'Planet X,' a supposed planet beyond the orbit of Neptune, for a quarter of a century. That year, Clyde Tombaugh, a Kansas farmboy with no formal training in astronomy, picked out the motion of the remote planet from a backdrop of thousands of stars and galaxies on glass photographic plates. The new world appeared as nothing more than a tiny pinpoint of light. Astronomers could determine its orbit, but could learn little about its structure, composition or even its size. Today [2005], the planet named Pluto still appears as little more than a bright spot, even to the sharp eye of the Hubble Space Telescope. And it remains the only planet not visited by a spacecraft--an omission that may be remedied in the next decade." (STAR DATE) This article describes what scientists know about Pluto and discusses the New Horizons mission to Pluto that is set to arrive in 2015.