Hey Nate.

Hey Justin.

Do you remember when Pluto was a planet?

Yes.

Yeah, like my entire childhood it was a planet.

Yeah, canonically.

In fact, if I'm being completely honest with you, it still is like a planet to me.

Pluto is still a planet. Yes, but officially Pluto is now considered a dwarf planet

slash Kuiper belt object object the type of object studied by

astronomers like Samantha Lawler. I study the kiper belt and the orbits of Kuiper belt objects.

So these are small icy bodies out beyond Neptune.

And to study them, Samantha needs to use a super powerful telescope.

This one is on Monikeia in Hawaii and this is the kind of

telescope that astronomers have to apply to use. It costs thousands of dollars an hour to

operate and getting time with it is quite competitive.

We take a picture of a spot on the sky,

a really long time exposure picture,

usually like five minutes or more,

and then come back an hour later and take another

picture and come back an hour later and take another picture and see what moves.

But lately, something's been interfering with these images.

Uh-oh.

...