10 amazing facts about Pluto.

Guides looks at 10 facts about our furthest family member.

1. Discovery

It was 24-year old Clyde Tombaugh, a research assistant, who first stumbled across Pluto in 1936. While predictions about its existence had been suggested some 20 years earlier, Tombaugh was the first to confirm it was indeed out there.

2. Name

An 11-year old girl called Venetia Burney suggested the name “Pluto” to her grandfather, choosing it as “Pluto” was the name of the Roman God of the Underworld. Referencing Pluto’s distance from Earth.

3. Size

Pluto is 2,370km in diameter. This makes it smaller than our Moon – which is just over 3,379km wide. More accurately, it is 18.5 per cent the size of Earth.

4. Surface

It has been long-since believed that Pluto was a cold and dark ice-world. The new images disprove this theory. In fact it closer resembles Mars, with a red, dusty surface.

5. Mickey Mouse’s dog

Mickey Mouse’s trusty dog made his debut the same year as Pluto was discovered. To cash-in on the find, Walt Disney named the dog after the planet – no, it wasn’t the other way around.

6. The probe

The probe which is beaming the images back to us is called New Horizons. It is, in actual fact, only the size of a grand piano, and took nine years to get there.

7. Distance

It’s hard to comprehend, but New Horizons has traveled over 3-billion miles to reach Pluto, travelling at 50,000kp/h.

8. Photos

It takes three hours for a photo to travel from New Horizons back to Earth.

9. Downgrade

Pluto was actually downgraded from a regular planet in 2006 – the same year New Horizons launched. It was downgraded because it was considered the largest object in the Kuiper Belt, making it a space body, rather than a planet.

10. Heart

For the softies, Pluto seems to be happy to finally have had it’s photo taken. So much so that it is showing off a massive love-heart.

Pluto flyby inspires awe, pride: Your Say.

I would like to congratulate all those at NASA, all of its partners and all those individuals who worked on the mission to Pluto and the New Horizons spacecraft (“Pluto: Icy, weird, far away — finally gets a close encounter with Earth”). To have endured 10 years and 3 billion miles successfully is beyond words. It just proves that men and women can do amazing things that will benefit all of us for years to come.

Benjamin Carroccio; Westlake, Ohio

Comments from Facebook are edited for clarity and grammar:

The flyby of Pluto, along with the Mars rovers, are just two of the many amazing accomplishments of NASA. Still, it is a shame that we are currently unable to get our astronauts into space on our own.

— Johnny Rose

Right now, we don’t have a major need for sending astronauts into space. When time does come for more people in space, the private sector should be able to do the job.

— Dave Cawdell

It makes no sense to keep putting money into programs just to discover more about things we’re never going to step foot on. There are way more important things right here that our money could be used for.

— Cathy Raymo

Understanding what Pluto is, where it came from and how it came to be sheds light on our own questions of existence. By understanding the farthest reaches of our solar system, we can better understand our own planet, and ourselves. That is amazing, and well worth it.

Hope for democracy in Africa: Column.

Nigerian President Muhammadu Buhari's meeting with President Barack Obama in Washington on July 20 is an important symbol of the significance of an unprecedented peaceful, democratic transfer of power from a defeated ruling party to the opposition in Nigeria. That symbolism matters for the development of genuine democracy in Africa.

Nigeria matters. With 179 million people it is Africa's most populous country and, with a GDP of $569 billion, the continent's largest economy. The West African country's large diaspora in the United States includes nuclear scientists, doctors and other professionals that contribute significantly to America's progress. But Nigeria, afflicted at home by a predatory political class, corruption, and military dictatorships for much of its 52 years as an independent nation, has performed well below its well-known potential. It is not coincidence that President Obama's trips to Africa have by-passed Nigeria.

Now, Buhari's visit at Obama's invitation is only one of several indications that the country is beginning to reclaim the respect of Western governments and its natural leadership role in Africa. But huge challenges remain, from the depredations of the terrorist group Boko Haram to the near absence of electric power to drive real economic transformation, unemployment and a dilapidated public education system. And many Nigerian institutions have been progressively weakened by their use as instruments for partisan political power plays. The private sector is virile, but the absence of transformational public policy means that the country's economic growth, at an average of 7% annually for the past decade, benefits only an elite few. Poverty remains widespread.

The solutions for many of these challenges lie at home and not in Washington, but Buhari's meeting with President Obama has strong potential to break down a wall of mistrust that existed between Washington and Buhari's predecessor, Goodluck Jonathan. This mistrust affected the extent and effectiveness of US-Nigerian military and intelligence collaboration to combat terrorism. Perhaps Washington will now back Nigeria's homegrown anti-terrorist efforts more wholeheartedly.

Buhari will also need US support in his fight against corruption and his government's efforts to recover stolen Nigerian assets in foreign countries. Ascetic, and with a consuming disdain for corruption, Buhari is a rarity in the Nigerian political firmament — the former military dictator who ruled Nigeria with an iron fist for 20 months in the mid-1980s before he was ousted by another coup, is now a born-again democrat. He was elected largely on the basis of his anti-corruption credentials. Measurable success in this area will be an important test for his government.

But his start has not been auspicious. Immediately after he was sworn in on May 29, Nigeria's Democracy Day, his party, the All Progressives Congress — an amalgam of different opposition parties united only by a burning desire to sweep away the Jonathan administration — has nearly imploded from an internal wrangle over leadership posts in the country's parliament. Precisely because expectations of him are so high after years of disappointing leadership, Buhari's honeymoon with Nigerians will be brief. He has just four years to make a dent on Nigeria's problems before facing the voters again. Civil society organizations have already established a "Buharimeter" to measure his performance.

Despite a difficult start, Buhari can make a strong transformational impact if he can bridge the yawning ethnic and religious divide between Nigeria's predominantly Muslim north and the mainly Christian south and achieve a constitutional restructuring that addresses a distorted federalism that has hobbled Nigeria's potential. Only if his values outlast him as part of the Nigerian political canvas will he succeed in his mission.

As Buhari meets Obama, US-Nigeria relations should not be a one-dimensional focus on Boko Haram and terrorism. US-Nigeria ties must seek enhanced export trade opportunities for Nigerian entrepreneurs under the Africa Growth and Opportunity Act (AGOA), especially now that the US, powered by the shale oil boom, has become self-sufficient in its energy needs and virtually stopped importing Nigerian crude oil.

Beyond this, there are opportunities for American investment in a market that can offer solid returns. These include investments in lighting up Africa's powerhouse with electric and renewable power, investments in educational institutions that will create human capital needed to drive innovation and transformation, and a huge need for affordable, patient capital in a country with little remaining patience and little capital. This is how democracy in Nigeria and many African countries can deliver a better life for citizens.

Tyrese takes 'Black Rose' to No. 1

On the first Billboard albums chart to track a Friday-through-Thursday sales week, Tyrese Gibson debuts at No. 1 with his album Black Rose.

Gibson, who goes by the stage name Tyrese, sold 83,000 copies of Black Rose, according to Nielsen Music. That was enough to place the R&B singer ahead of Taylor Swift's 1989 and rapper Meek Mil's Dreams Worth More Than Money, which had spent two weeks at No. 1.

Debuting at No. 4 is the 29th installment of the Kidz Bop series, which contains kid-friendly takes on Swift's Style and Wiz Khalifa's See You Again.

Following Ed Sheeran's fifth-ranked X comes pop/rock band R5's sophomore album, Sometime Last Night, at No. 6. The latest albums from Sam Hunt, Meghan Trainor and Maroon 5 finish out the top 10.

Jamaican singer OMI has the week's most-downloaded track for a second week, with Cheerleader.

Five surprising things you can control with your phone.

In the last 10 years, the smartphone has taken over the worlds of communication, entertainment, productivity, photography and more. It was only a matter of time, then, until the smartphone absorbed the typical remote control as well. And I'm not just talking about replacing the myriad remotes for your home entertainment center.

Some of these might surprise you.




1. Drones and toys

You might have seen many drones using smartphones for control. The Parrot drones, for example, not only let you control the drone with your smartphone, they stream live video to it so you can get a first-person view and even play augmented reality games. High-end drones like the DJI Phantom and Inspire tend to use tablets instead and only for video streaming and non-flight control. Learn more about the wonderful world of drones.

However, many remote-controlled cars, boats and planes are headed that direction as well. There's the PowerUp toy that turns any paper airplane into a smartphone-controlled plane. Or you can get the TobyRich SmartPlane that connects to an Apple gadget. Just tilt your iPhone to control the plane.

In non-air arenas, the Moto TC Rally RC car connects up to an iOS gadget. Plenty of hobbyists have instructions online that use low-cost Arduino boards to give just about any RC vehicle smartphone control.

2. Home theater

OK, you might have known this one, but a lot of people still don't. Also, you might have looked at this area a while ago and haven't seen some of the latest options.

In the past, the best way to turn your smartphone or tablet into a universal remote was with an inexpensive infrared add-on and the right app. The Samsung Galaxy S6 even has an IR transmitter built in so it can act as a universal remote. However, many of the IR add-ons have disappeared in the last few years with companies switching to Wi-Fi base stations instead.

Logitech has a good example with its $99 Harmony Ultimate Hub. It sits in your home theater cabinet and uses IR blasters to control your components. Your smartphones or tablets connect to the Hub via Wi-Fi and the free Harmony app, which gives you complete control over your home theater setup from anywhere in the house.

The app makes it a snap to control your gear thanks to clearly labeled buttons and helpful graphics. You can set up macros to make complicated tasks a one-button operation. It isn't just home entertainment boxes; home automation gear is supported as well. So if you have compatible lighting, climate control or appliances, you're set.

Logitech isn't the only company doing this, of course. A company called Roomie sells similar items like the iTach Flex Wi-Fi for $90. Universal Remote Controls also makes home automation hardware, including the MRX-1 base station. At $320, the MRX-1 is a little pricier than Logitech and Roomie's offerings, but you could also integrate it with a full Universal Remote Controls home automation setup if you wanted.

3. Home automation

The Internet of Things is coming and it's going to connect your fridge, washer and dryer, dishwasher, thermostat, lights and everything else in your home to the Internet. That means you can monitor and control these appliances through your smartphone no matter where you are.

Want to trigger your smart crockpot or smart thermostat on the way home from work? You can. Need to see if your load of laundry is done, or turn on your lights so it looks like someone is home? No sweat. There is one hitch, though.

Right now, each smart gadget has its own app. Finding and loading the app for the gadget you want to control is the digital equivalent of juggling remotes. That's why Apple, Google and others are working on unifying them.

Apple's project is called HomeKit and Google has Project Brillo. HomeKit has a lot of support with manufacturers, but it only works with gadgets that are HomeKit certified. Brillo, on the other hand, should work with just about any smart gadget.

The technology is new, so it remains to be seen how it works in practice. Also, it will be a while before you have a good number of smart gadgets in your house. Still, the smart house isn't as far away as it used to be.

4. Cars

There are plenty of times starting your car remotely would be great. On a cold winter morning, you could turn it on from the comfort of the house and let the heater warm up. It would also work well for cooling off your car on hot summer days so you don't have to climb in and experience 130+ degree heat.

Newer high-end cars have remote starting as an option, but you can add it to your existing car with a third party like Viper SmartStart or Drone Mobile. These have apps that not only let you start your car, you can monitor if it's running, its location, whether it's locked or set it up to control other things like the windows.

That isn't to say this type of system won't set you back a bit. Drone Mobile's Remote Start + GPS Tracking package is $449.99, and you'll need to sign up for a monthly service plan as it uses cellular to communicate. The plans run $50 a year for the Basic option, which covers vehicle control and alarm alerts, or $120 a year for Premium, which adds GPS tracking and vehicle status. Still, that's less than buying a new car with remote starting.

5. Security cameras

Installing security cameras around your home or business to catch evildoers in the act is a good idea. However, being able to watch or even control the camera from a distance makes it even better.

There are plenty of apps that let you tap into your security cameras, from tinyCam Monitor (Android; $4) to IP Cam Viewer Pro (Android, Apple; $4). Setting up the streaming video does take a little work, but I have step-by-step instructions for you.

If you get the Komando Indoor Pan Tilt Wireless Security Camera, it lets you use your smartphone or computer to control pan and tilt to get a better look at the area. You can even listen to a room or talk to someone using the two-way audio system. That makes it great for spotting burglars, or keeping tabs on children or an aging parent.

Of course, if you need to watch a door, drawer or closet, you can also turn your smartphone into a security camera with very little effort. Click here to find out how.

On the Kim Komando Show, the nation's largest weekend radio talk show, Kim takes calls and dispenses advice on today's digital lifestyle, from smartphones and tablets to online privacy and data hacks. For her daily tips, free newsletters and more, visit her website at Komando.com. Email her at techcomments@usatoday.com.