Pluto was first spotted on this day in 1930 by Clyde Tombaugh, a 23-year-old astronomer at Lowell Observatory in Flagstaff, Arizona. Because it"s so far away—about 40 times as far from the sun as Earth is—scientists knew relatively little about Pluto until the New Horizons spacecraft reached it in 2015. In a flyby study, the craft spent more than five months gathering detailed information about Pluto and its moons. What did they find out? There’s a heart-shaped glacier, blue skies, spinning moons, mountains as high as the Rockies, and it snows—but the snow is red.
Too awesome to be a planet
Today in History
More Desktop Wallpapers:
-
The party’s just starting
-
Upper Geyser Basin, Yellowstone National Park
-
Tassili n’Ajjer, Sahara, Algeria
-
Fashion models of the avian world
-
Pont Rouge
-
Happy Fathers Day!
-
Happy Mothers Day!
-
Lionfish off the coast of Indonesia
-
Happy Panda Day!
-
An island hopper s paradise
-
Dashing through the snow
-
It s Mountain Day in Japan
-
Milford Sound/Piopiotahi rainforest in New Zealand
-
National Gardening Week
-
Native American Heritage Month
-
World Octopus Day
-
Womens History Month
-
Yosemite National Park anniversary
-
Frozen fun in the Canadian cold
-
Presidents Day in America’s front yard
-
A winter light show
-
The Sky Over Nine Columns in Venice, Italy
-
Happy birthday to the Peak!
-
Asian American and Pacific Islander Heritage Month
-
Star Wars Day
-
From the mind of Frank Gehry
-
Travel Sunday: Liverpool
-
World Lake Day in the Faroe Islands
-
Autumn comes to Old Town
-
Taj Mahal, Agra, Uttar Pradesh, India
Bing Wallpaper Gallery

