Pluto was discovered on February 18th, 1930 by Clyde Tombaugh of the Lowell Observatory but its location was predicted by Percival Lowell in 1915.
Pluto was named after the Roman god of the Underworld.
The new name was suggested by 11 year old British schoolgirl from Oxford Venetia Burney.
Pluto is a dwarf planet that lies in the Kuiper Belt.
It is made up of 50–70% rock and 30–50% ice by mass.
The New Horizons spacecraft was the first one to visit Pluto in July 2015.
It takes Pluto 246.04 Earth years to orbit the Sun.
It has five known moons: Charon, Styx, Nix, Kerberos and Hydra.
The light of the Sun is as bright on Pluto as the light from the full Moon is on Earth.
Pluto is just one of many astronomical objects in a distant area of our Solar System.
The temperature on surface of Pluto is approx. - 229 ℃
Pluto is only about half the width of the United States.
Its diameter - 2,302 km., which is only two-thirds that of the Earth’s Moon.
The Dwarf planet is smaller than moons: Ganymede, Titan, Callisto, Io, Europa, Triton, and the Earth’s moon.
Pluto has, sometimes, an atmosphere. When it is closer to the Sun, the surface ice thaws, forming thin atmosphere of nitrogen, methane and carbon monoxide. As the planet travels away from the Sun, the gases then freeze back into its usual solid state.
Pluto's orbit period is - 248.0 years, - distance - 5,874,000,000 km.

свернуть