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When the spacecraft was launched, Pluto was still classified as a planet, later to be reclassified as a dwarf planet by the International Astronomical Union (IAU). Some members of the New Horizons team, including Alan Stern, disagree with the IAU definition and still describe Pluto as the ninth planet. [38]
An artist's impression of Pluto 350. Another mission concept, known as Pluto 350, was developed by Robert Farquhar of the Goddard Space Flight Center, with Alan Stern and Fran Bagenal of the Pluto Underground, who both served as study scientists for the project. Pluto 350 aimed to send a spacecraft, weighing around 350 kilograms, to Pluto. [11]
Pluto and Charon are sometimes considered a binary system because the barycenter of their orbits does not lie within either body, and they are tidally locked. New Horizons was the first spacecraft to visit Pluto and its moons, making a flyby on July 14, 2015, and taking detailed measurements and observations.
Observations by the James Webb Space Telescope are giving scientists a fuller understanding about the composition and evolution of Pluto's moon Charon, the largest moon orbiting any of our solar ...
The New Horizons spacecraft took an image of Pluto's heart on July 14, 2015. ... could shed more light on how the mysterious dwarf planet formed. Pluto’s origins have remained murky given that ...
Images from New Horizons spacecraft provide more evidence about the surface of Pluto.
Since Pluto's reclassification as a dwarf planet in 2006 by the International Astronomical Union (IAU), space exploration has increasingly focused on these celestial bodies. In 2015 significant milestones in dwarf planet exploration were reached with the flybys of Pluto and Ceres by the New Horizons and Dawn spacecraft. [1] [2]
NASA has released the 'first and best' images the New Horizons spacecraft was able to take of Pluto during its flyby of the dwarf planet in July.