[meteorite-list] NASA Missions Have Their Eyes Peeled on Pluto

[Ron Baalke]

http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.php?feature=4656

NASA Missions Have Their Eyes Peeled on Pluto
Jet Propulsion Laboratory
July 9, 2015

What's icy, has "wobbly" potato-shaped moons, and is the world's best-known 
dwarf planet? The answer is Pluto, and NASA's New Horizons is speeding 
towards the edge of our solar system for a July 14 flyby. It won't be 
making observations alone; NASA's fleet of observatories will be busy 
gathering data before and after to help piece together what we know about 
Pluto, and what features New Horizons data might help explain.

"NASA is aiming some of our most powerful space observatories at Pluto," 
said Paul Hertz, Astrophysics Division Director at NASA Headquarters, 
Washington. "With their unique capabilities combined, we will have a multi-faceted 
view of the Pluto system complementary to New Horizons data."

Right around New Horizons' closest approach to Pluto, Cassini will take 
an image of the dwarf planet from its station in orbit around Saturn. 
Although Cassini is the closest spacecraft to New Horizons' distant location, 
the image of Pluto will be but a faint dot on a field of stars. Even so, 
the image will provide a scientific measurement of Pluto from a different 
vantage point that will complement data collected by New Horizons.

"The Cassini team has been pleased to provide occasional imaging support 
for New Horizons for several years to aid with the Pluto-bound spacecraft's 
navigation. It's great to provide one last look as it soars through the 
Pluto system," said Earl Maize, Cassini project manager at NASA's Jet 
Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California.

Even after New Horizons flies past Pluto, the observations won't end there. 
On July 23, the Spitzer Space Telescope will begin a seven-day series 
of observations, gathering infrared data at 18 different longitudes. The 
data will reveal possible changes in ice on Pluto's surface.

"Spitzer is around 4.87 billion kilometers (around 3 billion miles) from 
Pluto," said Noemi Pinella-Alonso from the University of Tennessee in 
Knoxville, and lead investigator of the Spitzer observations. "The spacecraft 
provides an effective tool to study the ice on the surface and search 
for other materials that have not yet been identified."

Beginning in October, the Kepler spacecraft in its new mission, K2, will 
train its unceasing gaze on Pluto for nearly three months. Similar to 
how Kepler detected distant planets by measuring the change in brightness 
from their host star, K2 will record the change in the reflected light 
off Pluto and its nearest and largest moon, Charon. Scientists will learn 
more about the effects on the atmosphere and surface of Pluto imparted 
by the dwarf planet's eccentric and expanding orbit about the sun. The 
data may also reveal seasonal changes on this chilly world.

"K2 observations will expand the time coverage of the speedy New Horizons 
flyby of Pluto, making observations of the dwarf planet-moon system every 
30 minutes," said Steve Howell, project scientist for Kepler/K2 at NASA's 
Ames Research Center in Moffett Field, California. "We are excited to 
turn the planet-hunting Kepler spacecraft's attention to this distant 
solar system object to provide additional scientific insight into this 
far-off, mysterious world, itself a miniature solar system of five moons 
in orbit about Pluto."

Prior to the New Horizons flyby, the SOFIA airborne observatory, an infrared 
telescope installed on a 747 aircraft, soared into the perfect position 
over the Southern Ocean on June 28, to be directly in line with Pluto 
and a distant star. As the dwarf planet and its atmosphere were backlit 
by the star, this "occultation" caused a faint shadow of Pluto to move 
across the surface of Earth at more than 53,000 mph, creating a ripe opportunity 
for SOFIA's mobile instruments to perform scientific analysis to help 
scientists understand the density and structure of Pluto's atmosphere.

"The New Horizons' and SOFIA's observations of Pluto provide a baseline 
measurement that will help track the evolving atmosphere of Pluto for 
years to come," said Pamela Marcum, SOFIA Program Scientist at NASA's 
Ames Research Center. "This unique opportunity to connect what SOFIA observes 
remotely with in-situ measurements from New Horizons will allow future 
analyses of Pluto from Earth by SOFIA and other observatories to be considerably 
enhanced."

Since its launch in 1990, the Hubble Space Telescope has provided the 
clearest Earth-orbiting telescopic views of Pluto and Charon, mapped the 
dwarf planet's surface and discovered four new moons. While monitoring 
Pluto in preparation for the New Horizons' flyby, the telescope discovered 
the tiny moons Nix and Hydra. Kerberos and Styx were uncovered in 2011 
and 2012, respectively.

After analyzing several years of Hubble observations, astronomers reported 
this year that that the moons Nix and Hydra are tumbling chaotically along 
their orbits due partly to a dynamically shifting  gravitational field 
caused by the system's two central bodies, Pluto and Charon. The moons 
are also football-shaped, which contributes to the chaotic rotation. Hubble 
continues to monitor Pluto in support of the New Horizons flyby.

With the combined observations of the many missions, scientists will have 
a rich set of data to work with to better shed light on the shadowy dwarf 
planet. The data will be available to the public once it is processed.

The Cassini-Huygens mission is a cooperative project of NASA, ESA (European 
Space Agency) and the Italian Space Agency. NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory 
in Pasadena, California, manages the mission for the agency's Science 
Mission Directorate in Washington. JPL is a division of the California 
Institute of Technology in Pasadena. The Cassini imaging operations center 
is based at the Space Science Institute in Boulder, Colorado.

JPL manages the Spitzer Space Telescope mission for NASA's Science Mission 
Directorate, Washington. Science operations are conducted at the Spitzer 
Science Center at Caltech. Spacecraft operations are based at Lockheed 
Martin Space Systems Company, Littleton, Colorado. Data are archived at 
the Infrared Science Archive housed at the Infrared Processing and Analysis 
Center at Caltech. Caltech manages JPL for NASA.

For more information about Cassini, visit:

http://www.nasa.gov/cassini

http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov

For more information about Spitzer, visit:

http://spitzer.caltech.edu

http://www.nasa.gov/spitzer


Media Contact

Whitney Clavin
Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, California
818-354-4673
whitney.clavin at jpl.nasa.gov 

Preston Dyches
Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif.
818-354-7013
preston.dyches at jpl.nasa.gov 

2015-235