Episode 45: A glimpse of the Pluto system with Dr. Ennico Smith

Longtime listeners know I cannot get enough of New Horizons, the spacecraft that zipped by Pluto and Charon in 2015 and is now headed towards another distant object. Dr. Kimberly Ennico Smith, New Horizons deputy project scientist, stops by the show to talk about the new data currently being transmitted to Earth, what it’s like to work on this mission, and the violent past of Pluto’s moon Charon.

Pluto, as seen by New Horizons. Credit: NASA/Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory/Southwest Research Institute