Pluto: Too Hip to Be Out There. Pluto, the little planet that may not even be a planet at all, is suddenly all the rage among astronomers. And they're pushing to send a probe out there before it's too late. By Steve Kettmann. [Wired News]
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"There's growing scientific interest in Pluto the last few years, especially as Pluto is linked to a set of objects called the Kuiper Belt objects, which we've only recently become able to observe," he said. "NASA has put a lot of eggs in the life-on-Mars basket. If one of a dozen probes to Mars were deferred, a Pluto probe would get off sooner, and the Pluto investigation is unique.
"It's the only one of the planets -- or things we've believed for 70 years to be a planet -- that has not been directly explored. We know of about 10 light and dark blotches on its surface, based on the best Hubble Space Telescope images, but we don't know, for example, whether the light stuff is light because it's high and covered with frost, or low and covered with clouds."
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