Reuters Science News Summary
Following is a summary of current science news briefs.
NASA's New Horizons probe finds Pluto is bigger than predicted
Mysterious Pluto looms large and turns out to be larger than expected as NASA's New Horizons spacecraft wraps up a nearly decade-long journey, with a close flyby on track for Tuesday, scientists said on Monday. The nuclear-powered probe was in position to pass dead center of a 60-by-90-mile (97-by-145 km) target zone between the orbits of Pluto and its primary moon, Charon, at 7:49 a.m. EDT on Tuesday, said managers at New Horizons mission control center, located at the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory outside of Baltimore.
Spotted face of distant Pluto coming into focus
NASA's New Horizons spacecraft is closing fast on an unexpectedly spotted Pluto, the most distant planetary body ever explored. From New Horizon's position more than 3 billion miles (4.88 billion km) from Earth, radio signals, traveling at the speed of light, take nearly four and a half hours to reach the ground.
