The New Horizons spacecraft is slated to launch today, just after lunch if you’re on the east coast, and some time after you show up for work if you’re on the west. (NASA, I think, has a more specific timeline.) The craft is going to head for Pluto—the first up close study of the planet we’ve ever done. Stay tuned in 2015 for more info there. Equally fascinating is that New Horizons won’t be done once it’s waved to Pluto. Next on its agenda is the rest of the Kuiper Belt, that ring of icy rocks floating around the edge of our solar system, of which Pluto was the biggest icy rock—that is, until they discovered our tenth planet about a year ago. Yeah, I didn’t get the memo either, but apparently we’ve grown to an even ten. It’s not official yet (hence the planet’s current nom de plume, 2003 UB313), but there is a rock out there—three times further from the sun than Pluto—that is so far the largest object in the Kuiper Belt (about three times larger than Pluto). The exciting news is that, as our observations of the Kuiper Belt gets more sophisticated, there is a good chance that we will find more objects that might also constitute planetary status. (Suddenly I have the lyrics to "Splish Splash" in my head—how was I to know there was a party goin' on?)
You can find more information on the story behind New Horizons over at Space.com. Meanwhile, there's a committee out there currently weighing potential names for our new addition. According to the show Passport to Pluto, which is airing all the time on the Discovery Science channel this month, the man who discovered the planet has been referring to it as Xena. I'm willing to bet this is why his bosses decided maybe a committee was a good idea.
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