Latest Dwarf planet Stories
WASHINGTON, June 23, 2011 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- NASA's Dawn spacecraft is on track to begin the first extended visit to a large asteroid. The mission expects to go into orbit around Vesta on July 16 and begin gathering science data in early August. Vesta resides in the main asteroid belt and is thought to be the source of a large number of meteorites that fall to Earth. (Logo: http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20081007/38461LOGO) "The spacecraft is right on target," said Robert Mase,...
The 'moment of truth is about to arrive,' says UCLA's Christopher RussellBy Stuart Wolpert, UCLANASA's Dawn mission to the doughnut-shaped asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter, which launched in September 2007, is now approaching Vesta, a protoplanet that is currently some 143 million miles from Earth. Many surprises are likely awaiting the spacecraft. "We often refer to Vesta as the smallest terrestrial planet," said Christopher T. Russell, a UCLA professor of geophysics and...
A British-based team of astronomers has discovered carbon monoxide gas in the atmosphere of Pluto, after a worldwide search lasting for nearly two decades. Team leader Dr Jane Greaves of the University of St Andrews will present the new discovery in her talk on Wednesday 20 April at the National Astronomy Meeting in Venue Cymru, Llandudno, Wales.Pluto was discovered in 1930 and then considered as the Sun's smallest and most distant planet. Since 2006 it has been regarded by astronomers as a...
After 3 and a half years of thrusting silently through the void, NASA's Dawn spacecraft is on the threshold of a new world. It's deep in the asteroid belt, less than 4 months from giant asteroid Vesta."We're closing in," says Marc Rayman, Dawn's chief engineer and mission manager. "And I'm getting more excited every day!"Dawn will enter orbit around Vesta in July 2011, becoming the first spacecraft ever to orbit a body in the asteroid belt. After conducting a detailed...
NASA's Hubble Space Telescope has captured images of the large asteroid Vesta that will help scientists refine plans for the Dawn spacecraft's rendezvous with Vesta in July 2011.Scientists have constructed a video from the images that will help improve pointing instructions for Dawn as it is placed in a polar orbit around Vesta. Analyses of Hubble images revealed a pole orientation, or tilt, of approximately four degrees more to the asteroid's east than scientists previously thought.This...
WASHINGTON, Oct. 8 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- NASA's Hubble Space Telescope has captured images of the large asteroid Vesta that will help scientists refine plans for the Dawn spacecraft's rendezvous with Vesta in July 2011. (Logo: http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20081007/38461LOGO (Logo: http://www.newscom.com/cgi-bin/prnh/20081007/38461LOGO) Scientists have constructed a video from the images that will help improve pointing instructions for Dawn as it is placed in a polar orbit around...
Beyond the orbit of Neptune reside countless icy rocks known as trans-Neptunian objects (TNOs). One of the biggest, Pluto, is classified as a dwarf planet. The region also supplies us with comets such as famous Comet Halley. Most TNOs are small and receive little sunlight, making them faint and difficult to spot.Now, astronomers using clever techniques to cull the data archives of NASA's Hubble Space Telescope have added 14 new TNOs to the catalog. Their method promises to turn up hundreds...
Let the countdown begin. NASA's Dawn spacecraft is less than one year away from giant asteroid Vesta. "There's nothing more exciting than revealing an unexplored, alien world," says Marc Rayman, Dawn's chief engineer at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory. "Vesta," he predicts, "is going to amaze us."Dawn is slated to enter orbit around Vesta in late July 2011. As the first breathtaking images are beamed back to Earth, researchers will quickly combine them into a...
Engineers are studying the reaction wheels on NASA's Dawn spacecraft after automatic sensors detected excess friction building up in one of them and powered it off early on the morning of June 17, 2010. Reaction wheels spin to help a spacecraft maintain attitude control, and Dawn, which is exploring the asteroid belt, uses three wheels in normal operations.The three other reaction wheels are functioning normally. Mission managers said plans for Dawn to visit the asteroid Vesta in 2011 and...
A large group of scientists, including Jay Pasachoff, Bryce Babcock, and Steven Souza at Williams College, reveal the character of one of the most distant objects in the solar system in a scientific paper which appeared in the June 17 issue of the journal Nature. In observing the object named 2002 TX300 on October 9, 2009, as it passed in front of a distant star, they could tell what its surface is like and its size.For several years, Pasachoff, Babcock, and Souza have worked with James...
Latest Dwarf planet Reference Libraries
Uranus' moon Titania -- Titania is the largest moon of Uranus. Titania was discovered on January 11, 1787 by William Herschel. All of the moons of Uranus are named for characters from Shakespeare or Alexander Pope. Names for the first four discovered moons of Uranus, Oberon, Titania, Ariel and Umbriel, were given by John Herschel, the son of William. Titania was named after Titania, the Queen of the Faeries in A Midsummer Night's Dream. Titania is composed of roughly 50% water...
Brown Dwarf -- Brown dwarfs are a special type of low-mass star (approximately 13-70 Jupiter masses) that do not have nuclear fusion occurring in their cores during their time on the main sequence. Early in their development most brown dwarf stars do have lithium fusion in their cores, and a lack of lithium is a test for low-mass objects that are suspected of being brown dwarfs. Many brown dwarfs continue to glow in the red and infrared after their lithium is exhausted. This glow is...
