Q&A: Catching Pluto’s shadow

As NASA’s New Horizons spacecraft closes in on Pluto — scheduled to make its closest approach on July 14 — another mission much closer to Earth has caught sight of the dwarf planet’s shadow: On June 29, SOFIA (Stratospheric Observatory For Infrared Astronomy), a high-altitude NASA plane carrying a 100-inch-diameter telescope, raced over New Zealand to catch a stellar occultation — a rare celestial alignment in which Pluto passes directly between Earth and a distant star, casting a faint shadow on Earth. The way in which Pluto blocks starlight may tell scientists about the dwarf planet’s atmospheric composition. Michael Person, a research scientist in MIT’s Department of Earth, Atmospheric and Planetary Sciences (EAPS), was aboard SOFIA, monitoring its telescope for signs of the occultation; Amanda Bosh, a lecturer in EAPS, was part of a team in Arizona that was triangulating the planetary and stellar positions. Bosh and Person spoke with...

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