NASA VIDEO: SCIENCECASTS: VISIT TO PLUTO

AN ALIEN'S LOOK AT OUR SOLAR SYSTEM

FROM: NASA
　

Dust Models Paint Alien's View of Solar System
Dust in the Kuiper Belt, the cold-storage zone that includes Pluto, creates a faint infrared disk potentially visible to alien astronomers looking for planets around the sun. Neptune's gravitational imprint on the dust is detectable in new simulations of how this dust moves through the solar system. The simulations show how the distant view of the solar system might have changed over its history.

NARCOTICS AND THE SEMI-SUB



Caption: PLUTO seen during tests in San Diego, CA.

FROM:  U.S. DEPARTMENT OF HOMELAND SECURITY

Surrogate semi-submersible engineered to mimic the design of the "dark vessels" being used to bring narcotics and other illicit cargo into the United States.
With low profiles and low radar reflectivity, stealthy, drug-running semi-submersibles, "narco subs," built in southern jungles cut through the ocean at wave height and are nearly impossible to detect. DHS' semi-submersible mimics them so that a variety of sensors can be tested in the battle against illegal drug-running.

The erstwhile planet Pluto (now officially an asteroid) was known for decades as a small, dark planet—hidden, difficult to spot, and on a quiet, determined course all its own. And so, when the DHS Science and Technology Directorate (S&T) needed a target semi-submersible to detect the hidden but determined maritime smuggling operations of the South American drug cartels, it created its own vessel and called it "PLUTO," after the planet that is so difficult to spot. S&T’s PLUTO is a small, semi-submersible that is representative of what are popularly called "narco subs," and serves as a realistic practice target for the detection systems of DHS and its national security community partners.