Journey to the Dwarf Planet Essay

underworld is a space object that has been mistaken for a planet and a pay offt in the past. sensitive evidence has revealed that the previously position ninth planet of our solar outline is actually just an ice- shade, and parallel to all other objects in the Kuiper Belt. This paper explores netherworld through the muckle of New Horizons, the fastest spacecraft ever launched. This spacecraft would travel to Pluto in approximately nine years and reveal much good-nigh the surface of this unusual space object that humankind feels especially connected to, given that it was a part of our solar trunk for a bulky time.Using S. Alan Sterns explanation of the importance of Plutos surface that, in fact, this space object carries essential information astir(predicate) the origins of the solar system this paper fork overs a reason for humanitys interest in the foreign mission to Pluto. It is suggested that Plutos environment would provide important clues close the Earths envir onment. And even if it does not, all word of honor is good news in the world of science. It may rattling well be that the mission to Pluto would teach humanity nothing new, and whole renew its appreciation for the living environment of Earth.Perhaps this new awareness and appreciation would somehow help to save the Earths environment. travel TO THE DWARF PLANET rascal 3 Journey to the Dwarf orbiter Pluto is only 1413 miles in diameter, with a surface that is believed to be do up of nitrogen, carbon monoxide, methane and water ices. Many of the moons in the solar system are bigger in size than Pluto.Moreover, Pluto is said to pee its own satellite, Charon, which may or may not be considered a regular kind of satellite, given that it is almost as big as Pluto (Connor, 2006). According S. Alan Stern (2002), writing for Scientific American, the material on Plutos surface may sublimate into a gallant atmosphere when the planet is in the part of its orbit that is closest to the sun. In addition, scientists believe that Plutos surface may be experiencing the bang of geysers on occasion.Gas and ice may be shooting above the surface of the planet in plumes. Today, we understand that Pluto is a dwarf planet, not a real one. It has been called the ice-dwarf, too, seeing that this space object is utmost different from the planets in our solar system. The rotation of Pluto, for instance, is in the opposite precaution to the rotation of the eight planets we know Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune. Pluto is most unlike the Earth, which is a rocky planet.It is also unlike the gaseous Jupiter (Connor). Hence, scientists have been wondering most the real nature of Pluto for quite some time. Pluto has been referred to as a comet to boot (Wilker, 2006). It all started only ten years subsequently Pluto was first discovered by American astronomer Clyde Tombaugh in 1930 (Connor). During the 1940s and 1950s, searchers suggested that perhaps Pluto was the brightest of a vast group of snappy space objects in the area that it occupies. ThisJOURNEY TO THE DWARF PLANET Page 4 concept came to be known as the Kuiper Belt, named after the Dutch-American astronomer, Gerard Kuiper, who was for the first time in casting doubts approximately Plutos status in our solar system (Stern). Based on new evidence, scientists have come to the conclusion that the Kuiper Belt contains at least one hundred green objects that are larger than 100 kilometers across.In fact, the Kuiper Belt may very well be the big brother to the asteroid belt, writes Stern. This big brother of the asteroid belt has more mass, more objects, including those of larger sizes, and a greater supply of ancient, icy and organic material left over from the race of the solar system. Stern adds It is now clear that Pluto is not an anomaly. kind of it lies within a vast swarm of smaller bodies orbiting between about five billion and at least eight billion k ilometers from the sun. Because this far-off region may hold important clues to the early development of the solarsystem, astronomers are keenly interested in learning more about Pluto, its moon, Charon, and the bodies making up the Kuiper Belt. It is not only the astronomers that are interested in learning more about Pluto. Rather, it seems that the entire humanity is longing to buzz off out about its own origins, and how it came to occupy the environment that it lives in today. minded(p) that greater awareness about Pluto and its environment would provide humanity with clues regarding the origin of the Earths environment scientists have worked very serious to reachJOURNEY TO THE DWARF PLANET Page 5 Pluto somehow. Explaining their efforts in his article, Journey to the Farthest Planet, Stern introduces to the reader the $488 million ramble called New Horizons. This is a mission established by the Southwest question Institute, based in San Antonio, Texas, and the Applied Phys ics Laboratory (APL) at Johns Hopkins University.New Horizons is further supported by a team of scientists from various universities, research institutes, and NASA centers. The mission is, of course, for humanity to explore Pluto and its so-called double, Charon (Connor). According to Stern, this mission is equivalent of conducting an archaeological dig into the history of the outer solar system a place where researchers can get a valuable glimpse of the long-gone era of planetary formation.