NASA Astronomy Picture of the Day Collection

Pluto Not Yet Explored

Cold, distant, Pluto [ http://www.jpl.nasa…] is the only planet in our Solar System which has not been visited by a spacecraft from Earth. The story goes [ http://www.jpl.nasa…] that the legend "Pluto [ http://antwrp.gsfc.…] Not Yet Explored" on a US postal stamp depicting the tiny, mysterious world inspired a JPL employee to develop plans for a Pluto flyby. These plans evolved into the current "Pluto Express" [ http://www.jpl.nasa…] mission intended for launch early in the next decade. The type of small, high-tech spacecraft proposed is depicted above in an artist's vision approaching Pluto's [ http://dosxx.colora…] mottled surface. A tenuous, transient atmosphere is visible as blue haze beyond the bright limb while Pluto's companion Charon looms in the distance. Images and data from such a mission would be an incredible boon to those studying these bizarre, inaccessible worlds [ http://eggfoo.arc.n…] as evidence mounts that Pluto [ http://eggfoo.arc.n…] itself is only the largest of many small ice dwarf mini-planets. Some have dubbed the yet unexplored Pluto-Charon [ http://www.lowell.e…] system the last "astronomers' planet". Note: Pluto's discoverer, astronomer Clyde Tombaugh [ http://www.jpl.nasa…], celebrated his 90th birthday [ http://planetary.or…] on February 4.

NASA [ http://www.nasa.gov/], JPL [ http://www.jpl.nasa…], Michael W. Carroll

Pluto

Colorado

Charon

Goddard Space Flight Center (GSFC)

Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL)

Earth

Pluto

USERS

Charon

http://antwrp.gsfc.…

SPD-APOD-ap960212