Better than Hubble

There is an acronym that may be used more this year: BTH. It stands for Better than Hubble. Hubble is, of course, the space telescope in orbit around the Earth. No matter how good Hubble is, it cannot beat close up images. This year, space probes will reach the dwarf planets Ceres and Pluto.

Ceres is the largest object of the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter, the only one large enough to be spherical from its own gravity.

Ceres is not at all as far away as Pluto. Dwarf planets are also called plutoids, after Pluto. This is the dwarf planet that was counted as the outermost planet, in its orbit that is usually farther from the Sun than the orbit of Neptune. However, it was reclassified because there were many other dwarf planets being discovered. Still, Pluto is the biggest of those and has many moons. It will be interesting to get to know more about Pluto.

Some time, in the far off future, humans and dogs may walk on Ceres and Pluto, but I will be long gone by then.