Planet Pluto on the Rise

Contrary to popular belief, traveling into outer space is not a feat strictly limited to the astronauts of NASA. This can be confirmed when examining the case of Clyde Tombaugh, the discoverer of the planet Pluto, whose ashes were attached to the New Horizons spacecraft headed for the distant planet. Emily Martin who is a postdoctoral fellow at the National Air and Space Museum (NASM) Center for Earth and Planetary Studies, recently offered an article for the NASM Airspace Blog regarding the New Horizons Pluto Flyby Events.

Martin enthusiastically remarks upon her invitation to and experience visiting the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory, where she and many others anxiously awaited for the New Horizons spacecraft to approach its destination: the planet Pluto. Eventually the crowd received word that the spacecraft had done a successful flyby and Martin describes the moment of viewing the footage as, “An even more emotional moment than the flyby if you can imagine!” Who knew that expeditions to previously discovered planets could still be so very exciting? For further information regarding the interplanetary adventures of Emily Martin, click here.