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Pluto New Horizons

    Mapping to Make Sense of Pluto

    Pluto Geologic Map

    Today's blog post is from Oliver White, a postdoctoral researcher in planetary science at NASA Ames Research Center in Mountain View, California. He studies the geomorphology and surface processes of planetary bodies in the outer solar system. Looking at the surface of a planet or moon for the first time can be bewildering, particularly when …

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    Mapping Pluto

    Pluto

    Today's blog post is from Ross Beyer, a planetary scientist with the Carl Sagan Center at the SETI Institute and NASA Ames Research Center in Mountain View, California. He studies surface geomorphology, surface processes, remote sensing and photogrammetry of the solid bodies in our solar system. I've always loved maps, and I've always loved planets …

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    Pluto’s ‘Snakeskin’ Terrain: Cradle of the Solar System?

    The Bladed Terrain of Tartarus Dorsa

    Today's blog post is from Orkan Umurhan, a mathematical physicist currently working as a senior post-doc at NASA Ames Research Center. He has been on the New Horizons Science Team for over two years. He specializes in astrophysical and geophysical fluid dynamics, and now works on a variety of geophysical problems, including landform evolution modeling …

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    The Polygons of Pluto

    Pluto's Al-Idrisi Montes

    Today's blog is from Katie Knight, an undergraduate student at Carson-Newman University in Jefferson City, Tennessee. She works with the New Horizons team to help map some of the unusual terrain on Pluto, seeking patterns and estimating sizes and shapes of some of its unusual features. Hello! My name is Katie Knight, and I'm here …

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    Where’s My Data? Keeping Track of New Horizons’ Treasure of Information

    Pluto

    Last summer's historic flyby of Pluto and its moons generated a wealth of science data, capturing this new world which had never before been explored. Thousands of high resolution images, spectra and particle data were recorded on the spacecraft's two solid state recorders as the spacecraft flew by its targets. It was a fast flyby, …

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    The Many Faces of Pluto and Charon

    Four Faces of Pluto

    Today's blog post is from Kimberly Ennico, a member of the New Horizons' Composition Theme Team and one of the deputy project scientists. She works at NASA's Ames Research Center in Moffett Field, California, and has been on detail to the Southwest Research Institute in Boulder, Colorado. No one can doubt the beauty of Pluto …

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    Pluto: Ultraviolet Amazement

    First detection of Pluto with the Alice UV spectrometer. Credits: SwRI/Eric Schindhelm

    Eric Schindhelm is a research scientist at the Southwest Research Institute in Boulder, Colorado. He supported the Pluto system encounter in summer 2015 as part of the Atmospheres team for New Horizons. I was very fortunate to participate in the New Horizons Pluto encounter last summer, supporting the Atmospheres science theme team. I arrived at …

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    Pluto Flyby: Through the Eyes of an Early Career Scientist

    Left to right: Marcus Piquette, New Horizons Principal Investigator Alan Stern, Mihály Horányi, and former SDC students Jamey Szalay and David James. Credit: JHUAPL

    Today's post is from Marcus Piquette, a third-year graduate student in the Astrophysical and Planetary Sciences Department at the University of Colorado, Boulder. Marcus is a part of the Particle and Plasmas Theme Team working on the Student Dust Counter aboard New Horizons. Hello, I'm a Ph.D. student at the University of Colorado in Boulder; …

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    Studying Pluto from 3 Billion Miles Away

    Pre-flyby maps of Pluto

    Today's blog post is from Amanda Zangari, a member of the New Horizons' Geology, Geophysics and Imaging Team. She works at Southwest Research Institute in Boulder, Colorado. My name is Amanda Zangari, and I've been a postdoc on the New Horizons mission for 2 ½ years. It's been a wild ride, and it's amazing how …

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    Probing the Mysterious Glacial Flow on Pluto’s Frozen ‘Heart’

    A nearly top-down view of Pluto's icy plains

    "Since its discovery, Pluto has proven consistently troublesome to the theorist." – Sir Patrick Moore, The Observer's Book of Astronomy (1971) Written 45 years ago, these words are more appropriate today than Moore could have ever imagined. Greetings, I'm Dr. Orkan Umurhan, a scientist on New Horizons' Geology and Geophysics Investigation (GGI) Team. Pluto's surface …

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