Pluto Observations Through the Years via NASA

I got this copy of a photo of Pluto in my email yesterday  from Dr. John P. Holden at the White House, Director of Office of Science and Technology Policy.  He said he hoped I would share it with someone so, besides some of my family and friends, I am sharing it with you, [ This photo is no longer available so I replaced it with this Gif from NASA ]. I am going to share the text of the Email as well because I don’t think he would mind. I signed up a long time ago to get emails from The White House. Any US citizen can. Here is the text of the email message:

“This morning, the United States became the first country to reach Pluto — and the first country to explore the entire classical solar system: Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune, and Pluto. NASA’s New Horizons interplanetary probe has been making its way to Pluto since January 19, 2006, and has been providing the world with the sharpest photos ever seen of our Solar System’s most prominent “dwarf planet.” Today, it made its closest approach to Pluto yet — about 8,000 miles — at around 07:49:57 EDT.”

It seems to me I remember it was decided a while back that Pluto was not a real planet. I have to admit I never liked the idea that Pluto was no longer a planet. I don’t know about you, but I think this looks like a planet.

OK I researched briefly some articles on the topic of Is Pluto a Planet?

Space.com

Discover

Per CNN One person who never accepted Pluto’s demotion is Alan Stern, principal investigator for the New Horizons spacecraft, the first spacecraft sent to Pluto. He said Pluto was given the boot because of its distance from the sun.

“In fact, if you put Earth where Pluto is, it would be excluded!” Stern said. “Any definition of planethood that excludes Earth, in any circumstance, is deeply flawed. After all, if there is any object everyone agrees is a planet, it’s Earth.”

I read today they found snow on Pluto. So it has weather?

For more info:

NASA New Horizons

What do you think?

**If you are reading this on the new WordPress Reader, you can click on the post title to take a poll and let me know if you think Pluto is a planet.