Pluto and it's Moon, Charon
Unfortunately, because it is so very far away, there are no exceptional pictures of Pluto or
its' moon Charon. Even the Hubble Space Telescope can resolve only the largest features on Pluto's surface.
These pictures above are the best pictures taken of the planet Pluto. A planned mission called
'New Horizons' launches in 2006 specifically setting out to study Pluto, Charon , the Kuiper Belt
and beyond.
Pluto
- Is the smallest planet.
- Pluto is smaller than seven moons of our solar system: Earth's Moon,
Io, Europa, Ganymede, Callisto, Titan, and Triton.
- Pluto was discovered in 1930 by Clyde W. Tombaugh.
- Has a thin atmosphere made up of Nitrogen and Carbon
Monoxide.
- It's orbit is tilted compared to the orbits of the other
planets.
- Temperatures on Pluto reach -233°C (-387°F)!
- It takes Pluto 248 years to orbit the sun!
- Pluto is named for the Greek god of the dead, the perfect name
for such a dark and gloomy planet.
- All planets in our solar system have been visited by a space
probe, all but Pluto, it is just too far away.
- Driving a car to Pluto at 100 kph would take you 6872 years to
get there! Flying a jet to Pluto at Mach 3 (1600 kph) would take you 700
years to get there. And flying the space shuttle at 25,000 kph
would still take you over 42 years to get there. Are we there yet? This
will hopefully give you a small understanding of just how massive the
universe is and just how small we are here on Earth.
- It has one moon named Charon, who, in Greek mythology, is the ferryman of the dead.
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