Some facts about Pluto | Facts about pluto for kids | Facts about pluto
Pluto is an icy dwarf planet in the Kuiper belt, a ring of bodies beyond the orbit of Neptune. It was the first and the largest Kuiper belt object to be discovered. Pluto was discovered by Clyde Tombaugh in 1930 and declared to be the ninth planet from the Sun.
Discovery: Pluto was discovered in 1930 by Clyde Tombaugh.
Reclassification: Pluto was reclassified as a Dwarf planet in 2006 by the International Astronomical Union. It is called a dwarf planet because of its small size and lack of enough capability to clear debris and object out of its path around the sun.
In 2003, a new object beyond Pluto was discovered by an astronomer — Michael Brown. After the discovery of this new object – Eris – astronomers pondered upon the characteristics that make an object in the sky “a planet”. And they came to a conclusion that Pluto shall be classified as a Dwarf planet henceforth.
Pluto’s gravity: if one weighed 100 pounds on Earth, they would weigh only 7 pounds on Pluto – that’s how weak the planet’s gravity is, as compared to that of the Earth.Pressure: the pressure on the Earth’s surface is 100,000 times greater than that on Pluto’s.
Some facts about Pluto | Facts about pluto for kids | Facts about pluto
Far away: the distance between Pluto and the Sun is 40 times the distance between the Earth and the Sun.Distance from the Sun: Pluto can be as far as 49.3 AU from the Sun in its elliptical orbit where it takes 248 years to complete a revolution around the Sun.
Kuiper Belt: the orbit of Pluto lies in the Kuiper Belt. There are many other small icy worlds in this region, which are also known as ‘transneptunian objects’ or ‘Kuiper Belt objects.’
Five moons: Pluto has five moons – Charon, Nix, Hydra, Kerberos, and Styx.
Elliptical orbit: Pluto has an elliptical orbit and hence when it is closest to the Sun, its ice changes to gaseous form and forms a thin atmosphere over the planet. Charon, the largest moon of Pluto, takes around 6.4 Earth days to complete a revolution around the planet.
Day’s length: one day on Pluto is also 6.4 Earth days.
Water or ice? Pluto has a lot of water in the form of ice. The amount of this water contained on the planet is almost thrice the amount reserved in all the Earth’s oceans.Inside Pluto: it is suspected by the scientists that Pluto has a rocky core which is surrounded by a mantle of water ice.
Life? as per the data gathered from Pluto, scientists believe that existence of life is not possible on the planet.
Sunlight: due to the enormous distance between Pluto and the Sun, the sunlight takes almost 5 hours to reach Pluto. And it (sunlight) takes 8 minutes and 20 seconds to reach Earth.
Pluto in chemistry: Plutonium, a transuranic radioactive element, was named after Pluto. Prior to its naming, Uranium was named after Uranus, and Neptunium after Neptune.
NASA: NASA launched a spacecraft named New Horizons, which is about the size of a piano, to study Pluto. It is also the first spacecraft to flyby Pluto.
Some facts about Pluto | Facts about pluto for kids | Facts about pluto
Elements on Pluto: scientists have estimated that water might be in existence between the rocky core of Pluto and its thick outer layer of ice. It is also believed that the planet’s water should also be containing biogenic elements like carbon, hydrogen, calcium, nitrogen, potassium, phosphorus, magnesium, sulfur, chlorine, sodium, and iron.The absence of Oxygen: no traces of oxygen have been detected on Pluto yet.
The direction of rotation: Pluto, like Venus and Neptune, rotates backward, i.e from east to west. The planet also rotates on its side.
People also ask
What is a weird fact about Pluto?
Pluto has an extremely elliptical orbit that's not in the same plane as the eight official planets' orbits. On average, the dwarf planet cruises around the sun at a distance of 3.65 billion miles (5.87 billion km), taking 248 years to complete one circuit.
What is special in Pluto?
Pluto's orbit around the Sun is unusual compared to the planets: it's both elliptical and tilted. Pluto's 248-year-long, oval-shaped orbit can take it as far as 49.3 astronomical units (AU) from the Sun, and as close as 30 AU.
Is Pluto a planet 2022?
According to the International Astronomical Union, the organization charged with naming all celestial bodies and deciding on their statuses, Pluto is still not an official planet in our solar system.
Why was Pluto removed?
Answer. The International Astronomical Union (IAU) downgraded the status of Pluto to that of a dwarf planet because it did not meet the three criteria the IAU uses to define a full-sized planet. Essentially Pluto meets all the criteria except one—it “has not cleared its neighboring region of other objects.”
What is Pluto named after?
And a crater on Pluto is now officially named after Venetia Burney, the British schoolgirl who in 1930 suggested the name “Pluto,” Roman god of the underworld, for Tombaugh's newly-discovered planet
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