Q&A with Carol Raymond, deputy principal investigator on NASA’s Dawn mission

Scientists planning the the next phase of NASA’s New Horizons mission, a robotic craft that completed the first exploration of Pluto in 2015, are going into the flyby of a frozen, faraway city-sized clump of rock on New Year’s Day 2019 armed with little knowledge of the target lurking around 4 billion miles from Earth.

Watch the briefing to learn what is aboard the Orbital ATK Cygnus OA-6 resupply freighter launching to the International Space Station on March 22 aboard a United Launch Alliance Atlas-5 rocket.

A NASA post advertising an opening for a new Planetary Protection Officer provided a field day for headline writers who apparently couldn’t resist having a bit of fun at the agency’s expense by suggesting, in large type, that whoever filled the post would be defending Earth from aliens. And making good money to boot.