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Dwarf planet Pluto is a member of a group of objects that orbit in a disc-like zone beyond the orbit of Neptune called the Kuiper Belt. This distant realm is populated with thousands of miniature icy worlds, which formed early in the history of our solar system about 4.5 billion years ago.
- NASA Science
It was named by 11-year-old Venetia Burney of Oxford,...
- NASA Science
Pluto has a moderately eccentric and inclined orbit, ranging from 30 to 49 astronomical units (4.5 to 7.3 billion kilometres; 2.8 to 4.6 billion miles) from the Sun. Light from the Sun takes 5.5 hours to reach Pluto at its orbital distance of 39.5 AU (5.91 billion km; 3.67 billion mi).
Pluto's surface is characterized by mountains, valleys, plains, and craters. The temperature on Pluto can be as cold as -375 to -400 degrees Fahrenheit (-226 to -240 degrees Celsius). Pluto's tallest mountains are 6,500 to 9,800 feet (2 to 3 kilometers) in height.
It was named by 11-year-old Venetia Burney of Oxford, England. Pluto nearly fills the frame in this image from NASA’s New Horizons spacecraft taken on July 13, 2015, when the spacecraft was 476,000 miles (768,000 kilometers) from the surface.
Pluto, along with it's largest moon Charon, are considered a double dwarf planetary system, and is sometimes referred to as the Pluto-Charon system. Charon is 51% the size of Pluto. Pluto's surface consists of 98% nitrogen ice with ice mountains, ice volcanoes, and has a thin atmosphere consisting of nitrogen and trace gases.
10 lis 2024 · An observer standing on Pluto’s surface would see the Sun as an extremely bright star in the dark sky, providing Pluto on average 1/1,600 of the amount of sunlight that reaches Earth. Pluto’s surface temperature therefore is so cold that common gases such as nitrogen and carbon monoxide exist there as ices.
7 mar 1996 · Hubble imaged nearly the entire surface of Pluto, as it rotated through its 6.4-day period, in late June and early July 1994. These images, which were made in blue light, show that Pluto is an unusually complex object, with more large-scale contrast than any planet, except Earth.
