On Monday July 6th, NASA made history after releasing the crispest image to date of the dwarf planet Pluto. On Tuesday, July 14th, the New Horizons spacecraft will zoom past Pluto while collecting data about its surface — it will be the closest we've ever come to the dwarf planet and its moons.
According to NASA, the former ninth planet (cue the "when I was your age" jokes) was discovered in 1930 by a U.S. astronomer who qualified it as a planet based on its size. However in 2003, another object lager and further away from Pluto, which scientists named Eris, ignited a discussion about what classifies as a planet. Ultimately, they nixed Pluto as a planet and labeled it a "plutoid" (dwarf planet) instead.
It has taken New Horizons about a decade to reach Pluto, despite being the fastest spacecraft to date. But get this — the New York Times reports that while New Horizons is illuminating Pluto's surface to collect data, it may also capture images of erupting ice volcanoes. How cool is that?! New Horizons will then continue on to discover new parts of our galaxy we haven't yet seen.
To watch all this go down in real-time (with a delay during the time the pictures make their way to earth from the spacecraft), head over to Space.com tomorrow morning and stream it from their live feed.
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