Pluto on the Horizon: Anticipating our First Encounter with the Double Planet

The more we learn about Pluto, the more interesting it becomes. In the last decade, four tiny moons have been discovered orbiting the central "binary planet," which consists of Pluto and its large moon Charon. Pluto itself has a thin atmosphere and shows signs of seasonal changes. Tantalizing evidence suggests that Charon may have volcanoes. However, even in our most powerful telescopes, Pluto and its moons are just dots in the sky. All of that will change on July 14, 2015, when NASA's New Horizons spacecraft will fly past Pluto and provide our first close-up look at these distant worlds. In this free, illustrated public lecture, Dr. Mark Showalter, a co-investigator on the New Horizons mission, will describe how he discovered two of the moons of Pluto and will set the scene for the exploration that is in store.

Speaker: Dr. Mark Showalter, SETI