Pluto at a Glance
With a host of new articles proclaiming Pluto's return to the planetary fold, let's look at some of the interesting features of the ninth planet. It is quite complex, geologically speaking, second only to Earth, with Pluto has methane-snow covered mountain peaks, dunes made of solid methane ice, and possibly even an underwater ocean.
A combination of images from the New Horizons spacecraft in 2015, with enhanced colors. (NASA/JHUAPL/SwRI)
Pluto was the first Kuiper belt object to be discovered, by Clyde Tombaugh in 1930. The Kuiper belt is a ring of bodies beyond Neptune. Composed of ice and rock, it is only 1/3 the size of our moon. Because of its eccentric orbit, it periodically is closer to the Sun than Neptune. Five Plutonian moons are known - Charon, Styx, Nix, Kerberos, and Hydra. The name was the suggestion of an 11 year old girl with an interest in mythology, and was the inspiration for the names of Mickey Mouse's dog as well as the element plutonium. Not all countries adopted the name however. The Japanese call the planet Meiōsei, or Star of the King of the Underworld, and in Hindi it is called Yama, who is the god of death in Vedic culture.
Clyde Tombaugh.
Pluto has a day that is about 6.4 Earth days, and a year that is around 248 Earth years. It also features extreme seasonal variation, due to an unusually strong axial tilt, though to be caused by uneven massing of nitrogen. The weak but poisonous atmosphere is composed of nitrogen, carbon monoxide and methane.
It took New Horizons 3,462 days to reach Pluto, with the help of a gravity assist from Jupiter. It collected data for over six months using remote sensing and imaging instruments to characterize and map the geology, composition and atmosphere. Scientists are now pushing for a new mission to the Pluto, in hopes of generating a complete topographic map and learning more about its rotation and smaller moons.
Hi @pinkspectre
Thanks for this informative articla. We could able to know lot about our 9th planate. Beautifully explained.
Thanks for such interesting post.
Do post such more interesting articles in upcoming days.
Thanks
Imagine how many planets are beyond Pluto!
Billions and billions.. The real question is how many inhabitable planets are beyond Pluto that orbit different stars and is there any life and moreover is there any intelligent life? My brain says that there is, but we will never know due to the astronomical distances involved..
I agree @ablaze. And what other higher intelligence live on many other planets. I believe we create the universe/s in what we say and think. So its upto us in what we dictate to the universe. Kinda like The Law of Attraction.
That's a great write about Pluto. Thanks for sharing it. I always love reading about the Planets and the cosmos. On a clear night in the west of Ireland, there's nothing I love more than staring up into the sky, effectively looking back in time at the light that left each stars millions or billions of years ago... incredible really... and we are all stardust of course... it is no wonder we look up in awe...