The Santa Clara Valley Water District is taking aggressive steps to determine if the invasive species, zebra mussel, is in any of its reservoirs, creeks or other water delivery systems.

San Jose, CA (Vocus/PRWEB ) January 24, 2008 — The Santa Clara Valley Water District is taking aggressive steps to determine if the invasive species, zebra mussel, is in any of its reservoirs, creeks or other water delivery systems.

The action follows the discovery of zebra mussels in San Justo Reservoir, which is in neighboring San Benito County. San Justo Reservoir receives its water from San Luis Reservoir, which is also one of the water districts main sources for imported water.

Zebra mussel is an invasive shellfish that can clog water pumps and pipes and could potentially wreck havoc on the states water system. The shellfish are commonly transported between reservoirs by recreational boats. Bay Area boaters often frequent a number of reservoirs, which means the chance of the mussels spreading is significant.

The spread of both quagga mussels and zebra mussels have created enormous problems in other parts of the country. We know that early intervention is the most effective strategy in controlling the mussels,” said water district board chair Rosemary Kamei. Thats why were taking proactive steps now to find out if they are in any of our reservoirs.”

In the wake of the latest development, the water district is in the process of taking the following actions:

1. The water district is aiding California Department of Fish and Game (DFG) and the Department of Water Resources (DWR) in assessing whether the zebra mussels at San Justo Reservoir originated in San Luis Reservoir. The water district is inspecting its intake facilities in San Luis Reservoir. It is also working with DFG to perform subsurface inspections of its local reservoirs.
2. Test plates will be installed at Calero and Anderson reservoirs and at the intake facilities at San Luis Reservoir. The test plates are a Plexiglas substrate that is commonly used to detect colonies of zebra or quagga mussels. The plates will remain in the reservoirs for at least a month before any conclusions can be made.
3. As a precaution, the water district has temporarily ceased bringing water from San Luis Reservoir into Calero and Anderson reservoirs.

Background
On Jan. 9, 2008, DWR confirmed that zebra mussels were discovered in the San Justo Reservoir on Jan. 8. This was the first confirmation of a zebra mussel population in a California reservoir. Zebra mussels are closely related to quagga mussels which have been creating significant clogging issues in southern California water systems since early last year.

For more information regarding zebra mussels visit DFG website at http://www.dfg.ca.gov/quaggamussel/.

The Santa Clara Valley Water District manages wholesale drinking water resources and provides stewardship for the county’s watersheds, including 10 reservoirs, hundreds of miles of streams and groundwater basins. The water district also provides flood protection throughout Santa Clara County.

How You Can Help Save Amphibians from Extinction

(ARA) – At first, scientists were unsure why the frogs were disappearing. A stream would be flourishing with frogs and other amphibians, and then just a few months later they were gone. As rates of amphibian decline rapidly increased, a crisis began to unfold.

According to Amphibian Ark, a nonprofit coalition that rescues and protects threatened amphibian species, earth is facing one of the most significant mass extinctions since the disappearance of dinosaurs. Scientists believe that one-third to one-half of the planet’s 6,000 amphibian species – which have thrived for 360 million years – are in danger of extinction.

Why are so many species in danger? While habitat destruction is a serious threat, the most immediate cause of amphibian decline is a parasitic fungus called amphibian chytrid, a disease that is deadly to hundreds of species and has quickly spread from Africa across the rest of the planet. Chytrid fungus is currently unstoppable and untreatable in the wild, where it can kill 80 percent of amphibians within months. The World Conservation Union calls it the worst infectious disease ever recorded among vertebrates.

The world’s leading conservationists have joined together to form the Amphibian Ark to rescue the most endangered amphibian species that cannot be saved in the wild. The Amphibian Ark program will rescue priority endangered species and place them in “protective custody” in dedicated biosecure facilities at zoos, aquariums, and other institutions around the world for safekeeping, breeding, and ultimate repatriation – helping to ensure the long-term survival of amphibians.

Why Are Frogs Important?
Amphibians are indicators of environmental health and a vital part of the ecosystem. They play an important role in nature as both predator and prey, and they eat pest insects, benefiting agricultural health around the world and minimizing the spread of disease, including malaria. They also play an important role in human health. The skin of amphibians has substances that protect them from certain microbes and viruses, offering possible medical cures for a variety of human diseases, including AIDS.

2008 is “The Year of the Frog”
Non-profit coalition Amphibian Ark is kicking off the new year with a campaign called “2008 Year of the Frog,” to raise public awareness and funds to help avert the pending amphibian extinction crisis.

Clorox has joined this fight, helping to raise awareness, and most important, donating Clorox Regular-Bleach (R), to aid in the halt of the spread of chytrid fungus. Clorox Regular-Bleach (R), an EPA-registered fungicide, is one of the most important tools in Amphibian Ark’s fight to save the frogs. Frogs are treated with anti-fungal medicine and anything else that has contact with water during amphibian rescue is treated with a bleach solution, from boots and clothing to instruments and transport containers, to be sure researchers are not spreading the fungus to new, uncontaminated areas. When zoos and aquariums bring frogs that cannot be saved in the wild into protective custody, their enclosures are treated with a bleach solution daily for the first weeks to be sure they remain fungus-free.

Three Things You Can Do
Amphibians are a critical part of a healthy natural world. It will take everyone’s help to save these animals and protect them for future generations. The three tips below can be implemented at home to help you do your part to protect the environment – and amphibians.

1) Donate. Amphibian Ark is accepting donations and asking for global support to protect these important animals. Every person can play a role in the Year of the Frog.

2) Educate your family. Explaining to kids how amphibians and other animals play an important role in the earth’s delicate ecosystem is crucial. Teaching kids about the environment and the balance of nature will help them grow into responsible global citizens.

3) Restore natural areas in your community. Wildlife can often rebound, if given the opportunity. Volunteer to clean up wetlands and other areas in your community to help keep natural spaces near you healthy and pollution-free.

For more information on the amphibian crisis and how you can help, go to savethefrog.com.

Courtesy of ARAcontent

(NC)-Among the many challenges that face humanity’s ability to travel to Mars, the issue of life support ranks at or near the top. It should come as no surprise then that this challenge is at the heart of research being conducted by some of the world’s top scientists, including those in Canada. They are currently investigating options that would provide astronauts with the self-contained life support system required to voyage to the red planet.

One of the most obvious options is to use plants, which provide food; water and oxygen, while at the same time recycle carbon dioxide and waste. Unfortunately, the answer is not that simple. Scientists must still wrestle with the questions of which types of seeds are best suited for space missions and whether the environments of both space and Mars will effect the ability of the seeds to germinate.

In an effort to get Canadian students to contribute at their level answer these questions, and to help determine whether or not tomatoes could be the ideal Martian crop, the Canadian Space Agency has been collaborating with the University of Guelph, Agriculture and Agro-Food Canada, the Ontario Centres of Excellence, Heinz Canada and Stokes Seeds on the Tomatosphere Project.

Each year, students are provided with sets of tomato seeds that have been exposed to different space or space-simulated environments as well as a control group of seeds. These students become space-farmers, conducting experiments in their classrooms that teach them about the complexity of horticulture, inspire innovative thinking about food production off-planet and build their scientific skills set as they prepare to become Canada’s first generation of planetary explorers.

Over the next three years, Canadian students will continue to provide scientists with data related to the possibility of growing tomatoes in space, and perhaps determine whether red ketchup should become the official condiment of the red planet.

Canadian educators are encouraged to visit the Tomatosphere website at http://www.tomatosphere.org/ to register their class for the project and to access all of the educator guides that contain the curriculum-relevant content.

Credit: www.newscanada.com

The planet formerly known as Pluto has a few companions orbiting it. Because of all the hoopla of the recent classification of Pluto as a dwarf planet, there has been a lot of attention focused around this celestial body. Within the past year, two more satellites have joined an older discovery bringing the number of known celestial objects orbiting Pluto to three.

If you don’t know what a satellite is, at least when it pertains to a celestial body in the solar system, it is an object that orbits a body bigger than itself or a planet. It also cannot be man-made. Many satellites are often moons. In the case of Pluto, the three satellites refer to this dwarf planet’s three moons. They are called Charon, Nix, and Hydra. A man named James Christy, an American astronomer who worked at the United States Naval Observatory at the time, discovered Charon in the late 1970s. Nix and Hydra are fairly new additions to the Pluto companion line-up. The Hubble Telescope captured images of these two moons in May 2005.

Based on beginning observations of Nix and Hydra, scientists believe that they both orbit Pluto in a circular pattern within the same plane as Charon. In addition, scientists think that these two moons were probably formed around the same time period as Charon, possibly in the same event, a cosmic collision that probably occurred several billion years ago. The reasoning behind this hypothesis is that all three moons reflect the light in the same way. In other words, their indistinct color is vastly different from the reddish hue of Pluto. Because Pluto has Charon, Nix and Hydra orbiting it and there is the possibility of even more satellites as well, scientists have compared these celestial bodies to being a mini-solar system all on their own. In fact, scientists have called Pluto and its orbiting moons a Plutonian system. This Plutonian system has a very tight orbit.

Nix and Hydra have longer orbits around Pluto than Charon. In fact, Nix completes almost two orbits to Charon’s twelve orbits around Pluto. Hydra finishes almost three orbits in the same span of time. Quite a few scientists believe that there could be additional moons out there orbiting Pluto. Of course, while scientists formed this theory, they are also a bit confounded that this dwarf planet, which is only about seventy percent of the size of the Earth’s moon, could have all these celestial companions.

Before officially being christened with the names Nix and Hydra, these two newest Plutonian satellites were labeled P1 and P2. Scientists came up with the name Nix after the Greek goddess of the night named Nyx and who just happened to be the mother of Charon, the Greek figure that piloted the boat, which carried souls into the underworld. The name Hydra was derived from the mythological snake with nine heads that guarded the underworld. There is also another influence on the names as well. These two moons start with the letters “N” and “H” which are also the beginning letters of New Horizons, the spacecraft launched in 2005 that is headed towards the area of Pluto.

Scientists have several more years before the spacecraft New Horizons makes its way to the Plutonian system. Until then, they can only speculate about the three moons of dwarf planet Pluto - Charon, Hix and Hydra. The long trip to the Pluto area will help them gather data and bring new views to these satellites.

Photo is in the public domain and was created by NASA

The planet Neptune is one of the planets that is furthest away from the sun. It is known mostly for the fact that it has an extremely cold surface, and a hot inner core. Neptune remains largely a mystery to be solved, and newer technology is in the makings, which will aid in this process.

The planet Neptune was first discovered in the year 1910, by a man named Johann Gottfried Galle. Urbain Le Verrier’s mathematical calculations helped Galle to know where to look. In fact, this is the first planet that was discovered by mathematical calculations rather than by sight. It was not until after the math calculations of Neptune were made in relation to Uranus that Neptune was first seen.

Since the first sighting of Neptune, scientists have become more and more advanced in its approach to studying this planet (as well as others). One space probe has even been to Jupiter, and this was Voyager 2, which flew by this planet on August 25, 1989.

During the Voyager 2 program, a Great Dark Spot similar to Jupiter’s Great Red Spot was discovered. This dark spot on the planet of Neptune is established to be different from Jupiter’s red spot, however. Rather than it being a storm, it is known as an atmospheric hole, very similar to that of a hole in the Earth’s ozone layer.

The Great Dark Spot discovered during the Voyager 2 study is similar in size to Jupiter’s spot, and is located in the southern hemisphere of the planet of Neptune. In this spot winds blow as high as 2400 km per hour (1,500 miles per hour). This spot has appeared to change when the Voyager 2 flew by it, and it also appears to have changed in many photos.

Other discoveries that were made during the time of the Voyager 2 launching is that regions of concentrated crystal methane were found, along with frozen water. In addition, particle clouds that resemble those of the cirrus clouds on Earth have also been found on Neptune.

In 1994, other studies were done on Neptune, with the Hubble Space Telescope. At this time The Great Dark Spot had appeared to of vanished. However, another new spot had appeared similar to the old one. This new appearance is located in the Northern Hemisphere.

It is unknown why the Great Dark Spots have disappeared and reappeared in different places, or why they have occurred at all. Scientists are not sure whether or not this is a common occurrence or a rare happening. One theory suggests that the movement of the Great Dark Spot could be an effect of the extremely high jet streams winds that occur on the planet of Neptune-the highest winds of all the solar system.

In 2003, there was a new proposal made by NASA. It was to implement a Neptune orbiter with probes that help researchers study this planet. The California Institute of Technology and JPL are working together on this project. The desire is to be able to explore Neptune without fission-based electric power or propulsion.

The main function of the proposed Neptune Orbiter would be to perform more extensive studies of Neptune’s atmosphere and weather, the planet’s ring system, and this planet’s moons, especially Triton. Triton is the largest of Neptune’s 13 moons.

The new spacecraft used to study Neptune would be launched sometime around the year 2016 and it would take eight to ten years for this craft to reach the planet. As of this current year (2006) the building of the Neptune Orbit is still under hot debate. Furthermore, the launch date, trajectory, and other aspects of this plan are still not finalized.

It is said that the biggest problem with not being able to undergo this project is that of lack of funds. However, there is hope that more funding will be made available, which will help finance this project by the year 2008.

The main source of power for the new Neptune Orbiter would be most likely radioisotope thermoelectric generators. However, NASA only owns a short supply of this type of power. If enough of this power can be found, however, it could reduce the cost of building the spacecraft unit for this mission.

A similar proposal to the one that uses thermoelectric generators is ones that use solar energy. This would call for the use of solar panels, which would power the Neptune Orbiter. Furthermore, it is proposed that the solar panels used for this project would be inflatable, which would help reduce the mass of these panels.

Advancements in solar technology would make using solar panels for power regarding this latest Neptune project possible. However, the concern is still regarding cost.

There is quite a bit involved in using this type of technology, and this plan is definitely still on the drawing board as well. Another concern regarding this type of technology would include that of making sure it would not take too much time to build.

New discoveries are being made regarding Neptune every single day. The new Neptune Orbiter could possibly help as well, provided it ever gets off the ground.

Photo is in the public domain and was created by NASA

The Earth is hardly the only body in our solar system with volcanic activity. In fact, volcanic activity on Earth is actually quite tame when compared to the volcanic activity on a few other planets and quite a few moons in our Solar System. Of course, the Earth’s moon does not have a volcanic activity; however, scientists still think that the moon probably has a molten core. Compared to our moon, many moons of our Solar System are really volcanic centers.

The most highly active body in the Solar System when it comes to volcanic activity is Io, one of Jupiter’s moons. This moons surface is constantly being remade because the volcanic eruptions are so frequent and so all encompassing that the surface of the moon is constantly being remade from one material to another. The gases that these volcanoes produce turn the surface into different compounds and react with these as well to change it all yet again. The lava erupting from volcanoes on Io is hotter than lava found anywhere else in the Solar System; heats exceed 1500 degrees Celsius! This lava produces sulfuric compounds, pure sulfur, and silicate rock. This lave is what is constantly remaking the chemical surface of the moon Io.

However, Io is not the only celestial body that is volcanic in addition to the Earth. The planet Venus may or may not still be volcanically active. What is clear however is that volcanic activity played a fundamental role in making Venus into the composition that it is today. Volcanic eruptions were undoubtedly one of the most formative activities that made the surface of the planet Venus into the planet that it is today. Mars also has evidence of a lot of volcanic activity in its distant history. Astronomers have thought for a long time that volcanic activity on Mars was completely over and done with; however, new discoveries from high-resolution telescopes are suggesting that perhaps there was some volcanic activity on Mars in the more recent history than was previously thought.

In addition to Jupiter’s moons having volcanic activity, recent shuttle pictures have shown that some of Saturn and Neptune’s moons also have volcanic activity. Just what kind of activity, specifically, is not yet known, but astronomers and scientists are still actively watching to try to figure out what exactly all this volcanic activity really is. Scientists are studying the Solar System with keen curiosity, not only to find out what’s happening out there on far-away planets, but also in an effort to find out more about the life cycle of volcanoes and how they might react differently at different distances from the sun and with very different temperate environments. While no sort of biological life like is find here on Earth has been found in our Solar System, the bodies that make up our Solar System are far from completely dead, inanimate bodies. There is a lot of life in the Solar System, perhaps not the standard definition of life, but when all this volcanic activity is examined, it’s hard to say that everything is dead because these areas are continuously changing.

What’s already crystal clear is that the Earth has many things in common with other bodies in our Solar System even though on first glance that doesn’t always seem to be the case. The fact is that a lot of what’s happening here on Earth is also happening, in some form or another, elsewhere in the Solar System. The Earth is not the only thing orbiting the sun and the Earth is not the only body with smaller bodies orbiting it. In addition, volcanoes are not strictly for the Earth. With this knowledge, outer space doesn’t seem like such an alien concept any more.

The planet Mercury has many mysteries of which the new spacecraft MESSENGER hopes to solve, but one of those mysteries is of particular interest to scientists. There are many eccentric features of the small planet closest to the Sun, but one theory suggests that the planet is shrinking. Slowly contracting in on itself as its core freezes, the planet Mercury appears to be indeed getting smaller.

This theory is based on pictures taken from the only spacecraft to visit Mercury, NASA’s Mariner 10, which visited the planet in the 1970s and took photos of approximately 40% of the planet’s surface. The pictures show places where the surface of the planet appears to have buckled from within, leaving randomly strewn scarps across half of the planet. Scientists hope that new images from the MESSENGER mission will shed new light on the surface as well as the core of this rocky planet. Scientists and researchers will look for more signs of buckling on the surface where the Mariner 10 was not able to get photos. Also surface samples will be collected to examine composition data on material that may have once come from the interior of Mercury.

The MESSENGER named as such for Mercury Surface, Space Environment, and Geochemistry and Ranging, launched its mission on August 3rd of this year and plans to reach Mercury in March of 2011. MESSENGER will pass the planet three times before entering orbit.

One of the scarps discovered on the surface of Mercury that helped scientists discover Mercury’s shrinkage, is Discovery Rupes, which cuts a mile into the crust of the rocky planet as it weaves across the planet’s surface. Scarps such as this one would resemble features like fault lines on Earth. However on Mercury, these lines are randomly distributed and don’t appear to have formed due to the filling in processes similar to what can be found on the surface of the Moon.

The theory behind Mercury’s shrinkage comes from scientists’ belief that Mercury’s crust was formed over a gigantic molten core. The core cooled and that is what led to the volume change in the planet. As Mercury’s core cooled and condensed, the surface buckled and broke, giving scientists the view of those large scarps on the outer crust. Most materials, including those on Mercury’s outer layers, contract as they cool; this is unlike water, which expands. Scientists have estimated that the dense and rocky planet has actually shrunk inward anywhere between less than one kilometer and three kilometers, which is not insignificant.

The lack of understanding and information about Mercury’s core is part of the reason scientists can only speculate about what is happening on Mercury. They know that the planet has a very high uncompressed density for its size, and that it has a large metallic, most likely iron core, but what it unknown is far greater. Researchers don’t know exactly how large the core is, or whether any of it is molten. They also don’t know if it rotates to power Mercury’s strong magnetic field.

MESSENGER will give scientists and researchers a better view, which should conform, or at least strengthen their shrinking theories. Unlike the Mariner 10’s 45 % scan of Mercury, MESSENGER will spend a year mapping the entire planet. The clarity of this scan will show enormous amounts of detail previously unseen with the former mission to the tiny planet. The sophisticated cameras on MESSENGER will show details down to 60 feet across, compared to one mile with Mariner10.

To help determine the state and composition of the core, the spacecraft has a Mercury Laser Altimeter instrument that can track how the planet wobbles on its axis. Also, tools will be used to scan the surface and test the composition of Mercury’s ancient lava flows, which will help scientists determine the composition of the mantle.

More than half of the planet Mercury is a mystery. Hopefully the mystery of Mercury’s shrinking size will be solved after MESSENGER visits the planet in 2010.

According to one theory, Mercury was created after a giant asteroid collided with an even larger object about 4.5 billion years ago. This collision created the planet now known as Mercury and also shot a large amount of debris into space.

This idea that Mercury was the result of a collision was stemmed from the fact that the rocky planet has an unusual amount of metal for its size. Apparently after the impact, the outer layers were stripped off and very little of those outer layers reattached, thus creating a very thin shell and a dense core. Scientists have examined the apparent collision with the aid of computers and looked at the anatomy of the collision, as well as how some of the impact debris ended up on Venus and Earth. Earth’s moon was also the result of an impact, as was Pluto and its moons.

After examining the computer simulation, scientists were able to able to follow the formation of Mercury and determine the composition of the two colliding bodies, as well as follow the fragments that were the result of the collision for millions of years until they either came into contact with a planet, the sun, or were ejected from the inner solar system. This is how they were able to determine that some of the ejected material landed on Earth as well as Venus. The simulation also determined that it would take 4 million years for only half the particles to land back on Mercury, if they all fell back but by that time the debris would have been carried off by solar radiation which explains why Mercury didn’t keep much material on its outer shell.

Many planets and articles in space were created as a result of collisions. Dust in the early solar system became rock and eventually the planets we know today. Scientists believe many objects collided and became one larger object, while others were disintegrated or became dramatically altered after as much as a glancing blow. Planets may lose their crust, or atmosphere, or can be ripped apart to form smaller objects, or moons to other planets. These impacts create fragments that could become the space rocks that land on Earth today. The moon was thought to have been created when a mars-sized object slammed into our planet.

The solar system was created shortly after the Sun’s formation about 4.6 billion years ago. Scientists believe that the dust and gas that orbited the Sun gathered to form rocks. Those rocks collided and joined to form comets, and asteroids, and eventually planets. Scientists believe there may have been as few as 100 or so objects no larger than the Moon or Mars responsible for forming our planets, but their cosmic collisions would have created dramatic results. When gravitational forces are taken into account with massive objects even passing near each other, extreme changes to both bodies can take place. Each object can be decompressed, melted, lose material or even completely destroyed. The smaller object’s gravity could easily depressurize in the presence of a larger object causing the smaller of the two to break apart. This can cause the formation of asteroids and meteorites.

What’s left of Mercury after this apparent hit-and-run collision is a large and dense core surrounded by a very thin mantle and crust; however scientists still don’t fully understand the complexities of this theory, and are still examining it with the help of computer models and simulations.

The hit-and-run theory may however explain the extremely diverse composition of asteroids, including pieces that fall to Earth as meteorites. Some resemble the rocky surfaces of planets, but others are filled with iron, which is much more like the core of a planet. This diversity would account for the theory that all space rock was not formed in the same disk of debris; rather it has been formed as a result of many different collisions in space and therefore contains different types of material.

Pluto just celebrated its anniversary last year and commemorated it later in the year with a demotion from status as the ninth planet in our solar system to a significant dwarf planet. The discovery of Pluto was made seventy-six years ago and scientists still don’t really know much about this icy cold celestial body. There are many questions about this dwarf planet and very few answers. For instance, astronomers have no idea what Pluto is really comprised of or how it was created. And why does it have such a weird orbit in comparison with the eight planets in our solar system line-up?

The quest for the discovery of Pluto began long before Clyde Tombaugh found it in the heavens back in 1930. Percival Lowell earlier in 1905 theorized that there was another planet out there in the outer edges of our solar system. Back then, Lowell referred to it as Planet X. Before Lowell could prove his theory, he died. It is interesting to note that Tombaugh discovered Pluto while working at the Lowell Observatory. Planet X was no longer a theory; it was fact.

Pluto is an oddball when compared to the other eight planets in the solar system. Its orbital path is more oblong than elliptical and it doesn’t even orbit the same plane as the other eight planets. Rather, its orbit is inclined by about seventeen degrees. In addition, a lot of Pluto’s orbit is beyond Neptune. But because of the path’s oblong shape, part of Pluto’s orbit travels inside Neptune’s orbital path on its two hundred forty-eight year trek around the Sun.

Besides the planets, comets and asteroids also orbit the Sun along the main plane of the solar system. A few comets however are a bit contrary and have inclined orbits just like Pluto. This observation along with the small size of Pluto brought forth a number of hypotheses that Pluto should never have been classified as a planet but rather a celestial body part of the Kuiper belt, which is a frozen field of rocky debris beyond the planet Neptune.

In fact, it was the discovery of a number of objects within the Kuiper belt, some larger than Pluto that led to a universal definition of a planet and the ultimate demotion of Pluto to dwarf planet status. Before the ultimate demise of its planet status, NASA already had plans to launch the spacecraft New Horizons to Pluto as well as its moon Charon and several points within the Kuiper belt. Just because it was no longer a planet did not mean that it was no less important.

Pluto has been an icon of sorts for the layman in terms of Astronomy, sort of an underdog – mighty but misunderstood. It has been over seventy-five years since its discovery and Pluto is as still as much of an enigma as before. What we know about it has been seen through the eyes of a telescope and some images project from the Hubble Space telescope. And even those images don’t give up many details. Most everything that is said about Pluto is theory. For instance, scientists speculate that while Pluto appears to have practically no atmosphere, it does experience wind storms and seasonal changes. Also, scientists believe that maybe Pluto was formed billions of years ago in a cosmic event in which it was struck by similar object.

Unfortunately, there is too much speculation and not enough fact about Pluto to give any definitive answers. However, the launch of New Horizons before Pluto’s anniversary could pave the way to a better understanding about our newest classified dwarf planet. The world just has to wait until the year 2015, Pluto’s 85th anniversary to get some answers.

Pluto is not just the name of the beloved Disney dog character. It is also the name of the once ninth planet of our solar system. Thanks to the recent reclassification of a planet, Pluto is now a significant dwarf planet instead. It lies on the edge of our solar system and is believed to be made primarily of rock with a thick icy surface. The Sun’s light takes a little over five hours to reach Pluto because it is on the outer edges of our solar system. In comparison, it takes only about eight minutes on Earth.

Pluto’s orbit around the Sun lasts approximately two hundred forty-eight years, with as much as twenty years of it spent within the orbit of Neptune. This is because Pluto orbits on an oblong-shaped incline rather than a more symmetrical elliptical plane like that of the eight planets Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune. The temperatures on Pluto can reach go down as much as almost a minus four hundred degrees Fahrenheit. Brrr! The temperatures are so icy that the oxygen and nitrogen in its thin atmosphere freezes. Size-wise, Pluto is not as quite as big as the Earth’s moon, maybe perhaps two-thirds its size. And until the last few years, it was considered the largest discovered object within the Kuiper belt.

The eight planets from Mercury to Neptune all exist within the same plane as the Kuiper belt. This Kuiper region is theoretically comprised of all the leftovers from the formation of our solar system. From this field of icy debris and rocks come a number of comets. Going further, scientists have said there is a round area of ice, rocks and cosmic dust called the Oort Cloud. This is the “no-man’s land” of the solar system where comets with orbits longer than two hundred years sort of hibernate and where solar winds exist.

When it comes to natural satellites, Pluto has three – Charon, Nix and Hydra. James Christy discovered Charon in 1978. Nix and Hydra were discovered in 2005. Charon is noteworthy because paired with Pluto, they are sometimes known as a binary planet. This refers to the fact that they are locked tidally with each other, meaning that the same side of Charon faces the same side as Pluto when they orbit each other. And even though that Charon is about half the size of the dwarf planet Pluto, the common gravitational force that is guiding their orbits is not located on either celestial body!

Pluto’s two other moons Nix and Hydra were discovered thanks to the Hubble Space Telescope. They orbit about two to three times Charon’s distance from Pluto. Nix and Hydra also orbit within the same plane as Charon. Because of the recent discovery of these two moons, scientists have not determined whether their orbits also are tidally locked.

While there is not a lot known about these two new moons of Pluto, scientists have determined that Hydra appears brighter than its companion Nix. This observation fuels speculation that Hydra may be the bigger of the two moons. They figure this out by the albedos, which are basically the reflectivity of light off the moon. The brighter Hydra appears means that its dimensions are bigger or its surface area reflects light in different ways. In comparison with Charon’s albedo, Hydra seems to be similar up to about thirty-five to forty percent. This data then segues into its approximate size estimate.

A lot of guesswork has gone into some of the aspects about Pluto’s newest moons. Some scientists even believe that the dwarf planet Pluto may even possess rings. However, images transmitted from the Hubble Space Telescope do not reflect that theory. The scientists who persist with the ring theory believe that it is either weak like those of Jupiter or so thin as to be almost non-existent.

Only time will tell in regards to some of the secrets that lie locked within the icy demeanor that was once the planet Pluto. With the spacecraft New Horizons estimated arrival within the Plutonian system to be in the summer of 2015, scientists will have quite a long wait to unlock some of those secrets.