Pluto
Photo: (c) NASA, ESA, H. Weaver (JHU/APL), A. Stern (SwRI), and the HST Pluto Companion Search Team
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Pluto

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Pluto is the second-largest known dwarf planet in the Solar System and the tenth-largest body observed directly orbiting the Sun. From the time of its discovery in 1930 by Clyde Tombaugh until 2006, Pluto was considered the Solar System's ninth planet; now recognised as the largest member of a distinct region called the Kuiper belt. It is primarily composed of rock and ice and is relatively small; approximately a fifth the mass of the Earth's Moon. Pluto has an eccentric orbit that takes it from 4.4-7.4 billion km from the Sun, and is highly inclined with respect to the planets. As a result, it occasionally comes closer to the Sun than Neptune. Pluto and its largest moon, Charon, are often considered a binary system. It has two known smaller moons, Nix and Hydra. Anxiously awaited follow-up observations with the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope have confirmed the presence of these two new moons. The moons were first discovered by Hubble in May 2005.


Latest news on 'Pluto'

Pluto - 90 deg longitude, (c) NASA, ESA, and M. Buie (Southwest Research Institute)Pluto's white, dark-orange, and charcoal-black terrain captured by Hubble

— 7 Feb 2010 | Astronomy — NASA has released the most detailed and dramatic images ever taken of the distant dwarf planet Pluto. The images from NASA's…

Artist's impression of how the surface of Pluto might look, according to one of the two models that a team of astronomers has developed to account for the observed properties of Pluto's atmosphere, as studied with CRIRES. The image shows patches of pure methane on the surface. At the distance of Pluto, the Sun appears about 1000 times fainter than on Earth, (c) ESOThe lower atmosphere of Pluto revealed

— 3 Mar 2009 | Astronomy — Using ESO's Very Large Telescope, astronomers have gained valuable new insights about the atmosphere of the dwarf planet…

The International Astronomical Union has decided on a name for transneptunian dwarf planets similar to Pluto. The name plutoid was proposed by the members of the IAU Committee on Small Body Nomenclature and approved by the IAU Executive Committee at its recent meeting in Oslo, Norway, (c) NASA, ESA, H. Weaver (JHU/APL), A. Stern (SwRI), and the HST Pluto Companion Search TeamPlutoid chosen as name for celestial bodies like Pluto

— 11 Jun 2008 | Astronomy — Almost two years after the International Astronomical Union (IAU) General Assembly introduced the category of dwarf planets,…

Image of Jupiter's moon, Io, as seen by the New Horizons spacecraft, (c) NASA/JHUAPLNASA spacecraft sees changes in Jupiter system

— 10 Oct 2007 | Astronomy — NASA's New Horizons spacecraft provided a new bird's-eye view of the dynamic Jupiter system as it travelled through the planet's…
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