NASA's interplanetary spacecraft New Horizons is out of hibernation and now sending telemetry to Earth in preparation for its many many interactive activities over the next nine days while making its way to Pluto. The spacecraft is rapidly approaching the orbit of Uranus, which it will cross on March 18, 2011.
Meanwhile, freezing, distant Pluto seems an odd place to look for oceanfront real estate, but if a new computer model is correct, the dwarf planet harbors a sizable pool of liquids beneath its thick icy shell. Scientists suspect Pluto holds a rocky core spiked with radioactive materials that are slowly breaking down, releasing enough heat in the process to melt ice and keep it liquid. The temperature on Pluto's surface is about -375 degrees Fahrenheit. Recent Hubble Space Telescope images have indicated geyser eruptions and seasonal color changes on the dwarf planet.
The idea of an ocean on Pluto may not remain theoretical for long. New Horizon's space probe is more than halfway through a 10-year journey to Pluto at 36,000 mph. After traveling more than 3 billion miles, it is scheduled to fly past Pluto and its moons Nix, Hydra and Charon in July 2015, writes Irene Klotz for Discovery News.
New Horizons will pursue a post-Pluto encounter with other solar system objects within the Kuiper Belt late in this decade and/or the 2020's. Selection of potential targets will commence in 2012 within the planetary science community.
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