Background Information:
Pluto is the ninth planet from the Sun.
It has one known moon named Charon. Charon is very large in comparison to the planet and it can almost
be called a double planet system. Very little is known about Pluto because it is so far away, and we
have never sent a spacecraft to take pictures close-up. The United States is currently planning
to send a spacecraft to fly-by Pluto.
Pluto Images:
All pictures are taken by ground telescopes or the Hubble
Space Telescope. These are a few of the images returned:
Orbital & Mass Data:
- Average Distance from Sun : 5.900 billion kilometers
- Length of Year : 247.7 Earth years
- Length of Day : 24.6 Earth hours
- Diameter : 3,000 kilometers (?)
- Mass (Earth=1) : 0.002 (?)
- Surface Gravity (Earth=1) : 0.4 (?)
- Escape velocity : 5 kilometers/second (?)
- Average surface temperature : 50 K. (?)
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