Alan Stern
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Stern Alan Stern
Alan Stern who was the mission's principal investigator and team leader of the Southwest Research Institute in Boulder, Colorado said that the payoff at the end of the mission will be well worth the wait. He further added that in a real sense the capstone of the initial missions to explore the planets. Dr. Stern said that Pluto, its moons and that part of the solar system are so mysteries that New Horizons will rewrite it all in the textbooks. Dr. Stern said that this was in a real sense the capstone of the initial missions to explore the planets. Dr. Stern said that Pluto, its moons and this part of the solar system are such mysteries that New Horizons would rewrite all of the textbooks. Pluto, discovered in 1930 by the astronomer Clyde Tombaugh, turns out to be the first known example of a new class of planetary bodies called ice dwarfs. Dr. Stern dismisses recent debate over whether Pluto is really a planet, since it and its ilk are so different from the solar system's two other major classes of planets, the four rocky inner worlds like Earth and Mercury, and the four giant, gaseous outer planets like Jupiter and Saturn.