NASA’s New Horizons spacecraft conducted the first and only flyby of the Pluto system, culminating at the closest approach of that distant world in July 2015. Sailing onward, the probe carried out a Jan. 1, 2019 flyby of Arrokoth, a Kuiper Belt Object, or KBO, located in a region of space beyond Neptune called the … Read more
Clyde Tombaugh didn’t set out to discover Pluto when he sent his sketches of the night sky to Lowell Observatory in Flagstaff, Arizona in 1929. More than anything, he just wanted to get off the farm in Kansas where he spent his days working the earth. At just 23 years old, Tombaugh sent his drawings, … Read more
Adam Nimoy, David Levy, Alan Stern, and Dave Eicher conducted a 90-minute discussion on Pluto, Comet Shoemaker-Levy 9, various astronomical topics, and Star Trek in the Orpheum Theater on Saturday night. Credit: Dean Regas An annual event over recent years, the I Heart Pluto Festival in Flagstaff, Arizona, celebrates the history, heritage, and cutting-edge astronomy … Read more