The Dwarf Planet: PlutoOn average, Pluto is 3.67 billion miles from the Sun-nearly 40 timesfarther than Earth is. Earth takes 1 year to go around the Sun. But Pluto is toofar away, so it takes 248 years to go around the Sun.Even the best telescopes can't see Pluto clearly. Pluto ...
Pluto's mass as about 0.20% that of the Earth. Apparently Pluto is a low-density body, about 2320 km across, while Charon is about 1186 km in diameter; it is thus the largest satellite in proportion to the size of its planet in the Solar System – a title previously credited to our...
Because Pluto is very far from us - on average it is about 6 billion kilometers (4 billion miles) from Earth, little is known about the dwarf planet. In size, Pluto has a diameter of about 2250 kilometers (1400 miles), which is about two-thirds the size of Earth's Moon. Pluto's...
Gareth Cook, Globe Staff
Pluto was reclassified from a planet to a dwarf planet in 2006. This is when the IAU formalised thedefinition of a planetas “A planet is a celestial body that (a) is in orbit around the Sun, (b) has sufficient mass for its self-gravity to overcome rigid body forces so that it ass...
Pluto, large, distant member of the solar system that formerly was regarded as the outermost and smallest planet. In 2006 a group of experts in the scientific community voted to give Pluto the new classification of dwarf planet. Learn more about Pluto in
Even one of its own moons, Charon, is about half of Pluto's size. So, rather than being the runt of the planet group, Pluto is now the "king" of the dwarf planet group! What is Pluto made of? Astronomers believe that Pluto probably has a rocky core. Outside of that, but still ...
it wasreclassified as a “dwarf planet”due to the discovery of other Trans-Neptunian Objects (TNOs) of comparable size. However, that does not change its significance one bit. In addition to being the largest TNO, it is the largest and second-most massive dwarf planet in our Solar System...
Pluto, the dwarf planet that was once considered the ninth planet, has a growing entourage of satellites. The tiny world has five moons of varying size in orbit around it that tumble and dance in a strange and chaotic pattern. "The way I would describe this system is not just chaos, but...