What’s the Point of a Fly-By When We Have the Tech to Go Into Orbit?
New Horizons’ fly-by of Pluto and its moons is the latest in a historic string of missions to objects in the solar system. But given that a fly-by lasts for just a short time, how much can we really get out of it? There’s no doubt that the mission will yield a great deal of…
Earth, Meet Hydra
Hydra is the outermost of Pluto’s known moons, and until now, we’d only ever seen it as a faint pixel of light. Today, planet Earth gets its first real glimpse of this tiny, enigmatic satellite. This never-before-seen view of Hydra’s surface was captured yesterday at a distance of 645,000 km, within hours of New Horizons…
Charon, You are a Glorious, Beautiful, Complicated Moon
This is Pluto’s largest moon, Charon, in the most beautiful, detailed, highest-resolution single frame image we’ll be downlinking from the flyby this month. And it is amazing. This image was taken just 466,000 kilometers (289,000 miles) from Charon within hours of New Horizon’s closest approach early on July 14, 2015. The image was taken with…
Everything We’re Learning About Pluto and Its Moons RIGHT NOW
It’s been a crazy week learning about Pluto as the New Horizons spacecraft makes the first-ever close encounter with the dwarf planet. Join us as we live-blog the very first science results as the mission team reports back after closest approach. On Monday, we confirmed that Pluto really is the biggest dwarf planet and the…
Why Choosing the Right Surgeon Matters Even More Than You Think
In February 2012, LaVerne Stiles went to Citrus Memorial Hospital near her home in central Florida for what should have been a routine surgery. The bubbly retired secretary had been in a minor car accident weeks earlier. She didn’t worry much about her sore neck until a scan detected a broken bone. The operation she…
What It’s Like to Visit a Radiation Spa
When Geoff Watts went to a radon clinic within an Austrian mountain, he found the heat and humidity more troubling than the radioactivity. For anyone sharing my dislike of high temperatures and extreme humidity, a trip into Bad Gastein’s healing galleries is a foray through something akin to one of Dante’s nine circles of hell.…