TEN FACTS ABOUT PLUTO

Fact One:
Pluto is the smallest planet in the Solar System, smaller than Earth's Moon, and half the width of Jupiter's moon, Ganymede.

Fact Two:
Pluto orbits the Sun on a different plain than the other 8 planets, going over them and below them.

Fact Three:
Pluto's orbit is elliptical, meaning that it can come closer to the Sun than Neptune, but then go almost two billion kilometres further away from Neptune's orbit. In the picture below, you can see Pluto's orbit (in grey) and Neptune's orbit (in blue)

Fact Four:
Pluto has one moon, Charon, which is not much smaller than Pluto itself. No other moon is as close to the size of its planet as Charon is to Pluto. (Pluto is 2,280 kilometres wide, Charon is 1,212 kilometres wide).

  

Fact Five:
Pluto's journey around the Sun takes 248 Earth years. This means that, since its discovery in 1930, it still has 177 years to go until it has made a complete orbit around the Sun.

Fact Six:
Pluto is the only planet in the Solar System not to have been visited by a space probe.

Fact Seven:
Pluto is the planet with the lowest pull of gravity in the Solar System. This will explain why its moon, Charon, orbits the planet so closely (at a distance of 19,640 kilometres).

Fact Eight:
Pluto was the only planet to have been discovered in the Twentieth Century.

Fact Nine:
A day on Pluto lasts for 6 days and 9 hours, meaning that it has the second slowest speed of rotation in the Solar System (after Venus, which takes 243 days to turn on its axis).

Fact Ten:
Nobody knows what Pluto's atmosphere contains, or even if it has an atmosphere. Any atmosphere is most likely to contain nitrogen.

Fact Eleven:
Pluto's moon, Nix, is named after the Greek goddess of darkness and night. But, in Greek mythology, her name is spelled "Nyx". To avoid getting the moon confused with an asteroid which has already been called Nyx, and because they couldn't be bothered to think of another name, the International Astronomy Union (the people that give planets and moons names) changed the spelling to "Nix", taking the Egyptian spelling of the name.

 

VIEW FACTS ABOUT OTHER DESTINATIONS
The Sun - Mercury - Venus - Earth - The Moon - Mars - Jupiter - Saturn - Uranus - Neptune - Pluto and Dwarf Planets

PLANETARY STATISTICS

NAME
MEANING OF NAME
NAME IN FOREIGN LANGUAGES
AVERAGE DISTANCE FROM THE SUN
Comparison with Earth: 149,597,890 km / 92,955,820 miles / 1.000 A.U.
CLOSEST DISTANCE TO THE SUN (PERIHELION)
Comparison with Earth: 147,100,000 km / 91,400,000 miles / 0.983 A.U.
FARTHEST DISTANCE FROM THE SUN (APHELION)
Comparison with Earth: 152,100,000 km / 94,500,000 miles / 1.017 A.U.
DIAMETER ACROSS EQUATOR


Comparison with Earth: 12,756 km / 7,926 miles
DIAGRAM SHOWING PLANET'S SIZE COMPARED TO THE SIZE OF EARTH

CIRCUMFERENCE AROUND EQUATOR
Comparison with Earth: 40,074 km / 24,901 miles
MASS
Comparison with Earth 5,973,700,000,000,000,000,000,000 kg
TIME TO SPIN ON AXIS
Comparison with Earth: 23 hours, 56 minutes
TIME TO ORBIT THE SUN (1 YEAR)
Comparison with Earth: 365 days, 6 hours
DISTANCE PLANET TRAVELS TO COMPLETE ONE ORBIT
Comparison with Earth: 924,375,700 km / 574,380,400 miles
GRAVITY (EARTH = 1)
ESCAPE VELOCITY
Comparison with Earth: 40,248 km/h / 25,009 mph
MINIMUM SURFACE TEMPERATURE
Comparison with Earth: -88 °c / -126 °F / 185 K
MAXIMUM SURFACE TEMPERATURE
Comparison with Earth: 58 °c / 136 ° F / 331 K
WEATHER CONDITIONS
CONTENTS OF ATMOSPHERE
KNOWN MOONS
PAST MISSIONS (including nationality and year of launch)
PRESENT MISSIONS
PLANNED MISSIONS
NOTABLE FEATURES

 

- Pluto Main Menu - Pluto, the escaped Moon - Pluto's Peculiar Orbit - Charon, Pluto's Moon -
- Fact File - Go Somewhere Else -

- Main Menu - Fact File - E-mail Bob - Sign and View Bob's Guestbook - Lost in Space? -
- The Sun - Mercury - Venus - Earth - The Moon - Mars - Jupiter - Saturn - Uranus - Neptune - Pluto -
- The Solar System - Comets - Asteroids - Galaxies - Stars - Space Exploration -