If all you know about the dwarf planet Pluto is that it’s small, cold and very far away, well, you’re not alone. Since its discovery in 1930, Pluto has refused to give up much information. Even the best images from the Hubble Space Telescope show little more than a small dot with orange and black smudges on it.
That’s expected to change in July, when NASA’s New Horizons probe flies past Pluto and its five moons. To give us an idea of what scientists know – and what they hope to learn – about Pluto, planetary scientist Josh Emery stops by for a visit.
And WUOT's Chrissy Keuper checks in with a biologist studying contamination of the creeks and streams around Oak Ridge. The work is part of a years-long effort to understand the long-term effects of pollutantsintroduced to the area starting with its involvement with the Manhattan Project.