The University of Utah's Independent Student Voice

The Daily Utah Chronicle

The University of Utah's Independent Student Voice

The Daily Utah Chronicle

The University of Utah's Independent Student Voice

The Daily Utah Chronicle

Write for Us
Want your voice to be heard? Submit a letter to the editor, send us an op-ed pitch or check out our open positions for the chance to be published by the Daily Utah Chronicle.
@TheChrony
Print Issues
Write for Us
Want your voice to be heard? Submit a letter to the editor, send us an op-ed pitch or check out our open positions for the chance to be published by the Daily Utah Chronicle.
@TheChrony
Print Issues

Celebrate the Pluto Flyby at the U

Celebrate the Pluto Flyby at the U

The Department of Physics and Astronomy is hosting a “Pluto Palooza” in honor of the New Horizons spacecraft sending an image of Pluto to Earth.

On Tuesday, the department will broadcast NASA’s live TV feed of the spacecraft from 6 to 8 p.m. in LNCO 1100. Before going to the event, Paul Ricketts, the South Physics Observatory manager and an AstronomUr Outreach staff member, and Benjamin Bromley, a U professor in theoretical astrophysics and planet environments, said it’s important to know a little bit about Pluto and New Horizons.

“Pluto is the furthest world and the furthest distance we’ve ever studied an object with a probe,” Ricketts said.

In nine years, New Horizons has traveled nearly 3 billion miles. The spacecraft will pass by Pluto, and the neighboring dwarf-planet Charon, at over 30,000 mph. New Horizons is meant to help researchers study Pluto — what it is made of and how it correlates with its moons.

“Pluto is cool, whether or not you think it is a planet,” Bromley said. “This is a great step for NASA and space exploration in general.”

Bromely, who has conducted research on Pluto, Charon and other planets in relation to binary stars at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, said after New Horizons has collected its data during the Pluto flyby, NASA intends for it to aim further away from the sun, into a region called the Kuiper Belt to learn more about the outer solar system.

For more information on the data New Horizons will collect and its passing-by of Pluto, go to: www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/newhorizons/main/index.html. For more details on Tuesday night’s event, visit: web.utah.edu/astro.

[email protected]

@chriswritine

 

Leave a Comment

Comments (0)

The Daily Utah Chronicle welcomes comments from our community. However, the Daily Utah Chronicle reserves the right to accept or deny user comments. A comment may be denied or removed if any of its content meets one or more of the following criteria: obscenity, profanity, racism, sexism, or hateful content; threats or encouragement of violent or illegal behavior; excessively long, off-topic or repetitive content; the use of threatening language or personal attacks against Chronicle members; posts violating copyright or trademark law; and advertisement or promotion of products, services, entities or individuals. Users who habitually post comments that must be removed may be blocked from commenting. In the case of duplicate or near-identical comments by the same user, only the first submission will be accepted. This includes comments posted across multiple articles. You can read more about our comment policy at https://dailyutahchronicle.com/comment-faqs/.
All The Daily Utah Chronicle Picks Reader Picks Sort: Newest

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *