85 years after discovery, New Horizons gets first look of Pluto’s smaller moons

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PARIS: Exactly 85 years ago, on the 18th of February in 1930, a young researcher named Clyde Tombaugh was working at the Lowell Observatory in Flagstaff, Arizona. He had been tasked with looking for a trans-Neptunian planet, called planet X and it was on that night that he found it. On May 1 of that same year it was officially given the name Pluto.
Today, on the anniversary of that discovery, researchers with NASA’s New Horizons mission to Pluto were thrilled when the spacecraft returned its first images of Pluto’s smaller moons.
“Professor Tombaugh’s discovery of Pluto was far ahead its time, heralding the discovery of the Kuiper Belt and a new class of planet. The New Horizons team salutes his historic accomplishment,” said Alan Stern, New Horizons principal investigator from Southwest Research Institute, Boulder, Colorado in a statement.
Although the spacecraft won’t be up close to the distant dwarf-planet until July, the moons Nix and Hydra were visible in a series of images taken between January 27 and February 8.
“Professor Tombaugh’s discovery of Pluto was far ahead its time, heralding the discovery of the Kuiper Belt and a new class of planet. The New Horizons team salutes his historic accomplishment,” said Alan Stern, New Horizons principal investigator from Southwest Research Institute, Boulder, Colorado in a statement.
Although the spacecraft won’t be up close to the distant dwarf-planet until July, the moons Nix and Hydra were visible in a series of images taken between January 27 and February 8.
The spacecraft was still 125 million to 115 million miles (201 million to 186 million kilometers) from Pluto so at this point the images are still only visible as a yellow diamond (Hydra) and an orange diamond (Nix). However, it is the best view researchers have ever had of Hydra and their only look to date at Nix.
The images, assembled into a seven frame movie, as well as other images returned by New Horizons are available for viewing on NASA’s New Horizons mission page.
Each frame represents the combination of five, 10 second images taken with the Long-Range Reconnaissance Imager (LORRI) on the New Horizons spacecraft.