Star Points for February, 2006; by Curtis Roelle Pluto Finally Gets Some Respect Like the Rodney Dangerfield of the solar system Pluto never seems to get any respect. Scientists still debate whether Pluto "deserves" to be called a planet or simply another far flung asteroid. But things have changed in recent months. Pluto managed to remain concealed from prying eyes until Clyde Tombaugh's (1907-1997) photographic discovery of the planet, made while at Flagstaff Arizona's Lowell Observatory less than a century ago in 1930. Pluto was the first planet discovered since Neptune was ferreted out from the stellar void in 1846. I've viewed Pluto numerous times through different telescopes. Yet its appearance is indistinguishable from the typical mundane very faint star. Even in the largest earth-based telescopes Pluto's disc is small and distorted by the atmosphere. Pluto's average distance is some forty times farther away from the sun than is the Earth. In order to obtain a closer look Pluto was added as the final stop on a "Grand Tour" mission designed to visit all five outer planets during a fortuitous planetary alignment that occurred during the 1980's. As described in Kenneth Gatlan's book "Robot Explorers," NASA intended to launch twin spacecraft on different itineraries in 1977. One would make fly by passes at Jupiter, Uranus, and Neptune. The other would visit Jupiter, Saturn, and finally, 11 years after launch, the mysterious Pluto. However, the grand tour was canceled. It was replaced by the twin Voyager missions which managed to carry out most of the original plan by visiting all four outer gas giant planets. Unfortunately, Pluto got snubbed and ended up being bypassed. Although both Voyagers were launched in 1977 it took Voyager 2 twelve years to reach Neptune in 1989. The Voyagers then continued onward toward the outer edges of the solar system in search of the boundary at which the sun's influence ends and the interstellar medium begins. With last month's launching of NASA's new Maryland-built New Horizons spacecraft Pluto will finally get an up close and personal visit. New Horizons was built at The Johns Hopkins University's Applied Physics Laboratory (APL) in Laurel. Dr. Ralph McNutt of APL is the principle investigator of an experiment called the Pluto Energetic Particle Spectrometer Science Investigation, or PEPSSI (pronounced "Pepsi"). Ralph has also been active in Voyager science teams since his time at MIT during their launches. Although it's a long road to Pluto, Ralph is excited and sees the new mission as the culmination of a long process of exploration. "At the flyby in July 2015," Ralph said in a recent e-mail, "we will finally have completed the initial reconnaissance of the solar system, a task begun with Mariner 2 at Venus in 1962." Its eventual arrival at Pluto will not signal the end of the mission however. Like the Voyagers and even the Pioneer 10 and 11 spacecraft before it, New Horizons may continue operating for many years to come. Like an interstellar Energizer Bunny, New Horizons will go on, "still sending data to Earth after 28 years in space," according to Ralph. Pluto has also been in the news in other ways as well. In 2005 two new moons around Pluto were discovered on images taken by NASA's Hubble Space Telescope (HST). This new discovery has doubled the number of planetary objects waiting to be scrutinized by New Horizons. Max Mutchler, the fist HST team member to identify the two new Plutonian satellites, will be guest lecturer at the February 8 meeting of the Westminster Astronomical Society. The lecture is free and the public is invited to attend the 7:30 p.m. meeting in the auditorium of the Bear Branch Nature Center (BBNC) on John Owings Road. As far as Pluto is concerned a new era of discovery has begun. The conclusion of the "grand tour" concept is still nine years away -- 38 years after the Voyagers left home. "These are grand tasks, involving literally thousands of people," says Ralph, and "being part of both the Voyagers and New Horizons has been living a dream."