TABLE OF CONTENTS Introduction Mystery Solved 4 Chapter 1 Discovering Pluto 8 Chapter 2 A Journey to Pluto 18 Chapter 3 Pluto Up Close 30 Chapter 4 Beyond Pluto 36 What’s Next 42 Source Notes 44 Glossary 45 Selected Bibliography 46 Further Reading 46 Index 47
INTRODUCTION MYSTERY SOLVED An image of Pluto taken by New Horizons shows icy mountains and flat plains Nine and a half years after it blasted off from Florida’s east coast the National Aeronautics and Space Administration’s NASA New Horizons spacecraft sent back the first-ever close-up images of Pluto The images showed icy mountains and carved-up plains Scientists learned about Pluto’s atmosphere its weather and its moons They discovered that Pluto may have lakes and rivers of liquid nitrogen There may even be volcanoes that erupt with frozen nitrogen Pluto has been a mystery to astronomers for years Because it is so far away much of what scientists knew about Pluto’s size orbits and surface came from theories For years scientists 4
An artist’s rendering shows New Horizons approaching Pluto thought that Pluto was probably an icy rock covered in craters But scientists at NASA wanted to know for sure about Pluto’s atmosphere moons and surroundings They wanted to finally explore this tiny world near the end of the solar system The search for answers began with a roar of smoke and fire on a launchpad at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida on January 19 2006 On that sunny afternoon a massive rocket blasted off carrying New Horizons The spacecraft embarked on Technicians work on New Horizons in 2005
