Image Credit: NASA
Embedded Files
About Pluto
About Pluto
Pluto was named after the Roman god of the underworld.
Pluto is a dwarf planet located in the Kuiper Belt, a region beyond Neptune filled with icy bodies. Once considered the ninth planet in our solar system, it was reclassified as a dwarf planet in 2006 by the International Astronomical Union (IAU). Despite its smaller size, Pluto has some intriguing features, including five moons and a highly elliptical orbit.
Distance of Pluto From the Sun - Pluto orbits the Sun at an average distance of 5.9 billion km (3.7 billion miles), or 39.48 AU. (1 AU = Distance from Earth to Sun)
Earth size comparison - Pluto is tiny, only about 18% of Earth’s size. If Earth were a basketball, Pluto would be a golf ball.
Five Facts About Pluto
Five Facts About Pluto
Dwarf Planet Status – Pluto was reclassified as a dwarf planet in 2006 because it doesn’t clear its orbit of other objects, which is one of the criteria for being considered a full-fledged planet.
Highly Elliptical Orbit – Pluto’s orbit is highly elliptical and tilted compared to the other planets. This means it sometimes comes closer to the Sun than Neptune, but their orbits are aligned so they never collide.
Cold and Icy – Pluto is incredibly cold, with temperatures around -229°C (-380°F), and its surface is covered with frozen methane, nitrogen, and carbon monoxide.
Five Moons – Pluto has five known moons, with Charon being the largest and closest. Charon is so large in comparison to Pluto that they are sometimes considered a binary system.
New Horizons Mission – Pluto was visited by NASA’s New Horizons spacecraft in 2015, providing the first close-up images of its surface and revealing complex features like mountains, glaciers, and possible ice volcanoes.
Click on any of the names below to learn more about other planets in our solar system.
Mercury | Venus | Earth | Mars | Jupiter | Saturn | Uranus | Neptune | Dwarf Planet Pluto
Page updated
Google Sites
Report abuse