From the classic ‘Pluto’ dog off Mickey mouse, to its unfortunate demotion out of
our solar system, we countdown thee Top 10 Interesting Facts about Pluto.
10.
The basics Pluto is the famous dwarf planet that has
been demoted, kicked out of the solar system and stripped of its planetary status.
Sitting far away from the rest of the planets, Pluto is located in Kuiper belt, a region
that is beyond the orbit of Neptune.
Even though it is no longer a planet, it is now the largest dwarf planet in the solar
system.
It was discovered in 1930 and enjoyed being a planet until August 2006.
9.
Pluto was named by an eleven year old girl Venetia Burney
When Pluto was discovered, a lot of hype was created all over the world.
The Lowell Observatory that selected the names for the celestial bodies were swamped with
hundreds of submissions.
Some of the names that were considered includes , Zeus, Percival, Constance and Atlas.
Finally, Venetia Burney, an eleven year old girl in Oxford, came to the rescue.
She suggested the name Pluto, after the Roman god of the underworld, to her grandfather
Falconer Madan, a librarian at the University of Oxford.
He passed her suggestion to an astronomy professor, Herbert Hall Turner, who cabled the message
to his colleagues in the United States.
8.
Pluto, Mickey Mouse's dog, was named after the dwarf planet
Pluto the Disney dog was named after the former planet.
As mentioned previously, Pluto's discovery caused a lot of global commotion.
Disney's Pluto was launched the same year the dwarf planet was discovered.
The staff of Walt Disney surmised that the name would give publicity to the cartoon.
They were not wrong!
Pluto the dog soon became a hit.
7.
Pluto was once the eighth planet Pluto's orbital period is equal to 248 earth
years.
During this period, there were 20 years between 1979 and 1999 in which Pluto was closer to
the sun than Neptune.
Neptune was the ninth planet during these two decades!
The weird orbital period is because of Pluto's orbit which is elliptical and highly inclined.
It takes sunlight five hours to reach Pluto!
Apart from tediously long years, cold and darkness and, the days on Pluto are also very
long.
One day on Pluto is equal to 6.4 earth days.
6.
Is Pluto Neptune's moon?
Scientists have speculated that Pluto was actually a satellite of Neptune that somehow
managed to escape the planet's gravitational force and created its own orbit.
How cool is that?
5.
Why is Pluto no longer a planet?
In 2003, astronomers discovered a new object beyond Pluto that was larger in size than
the dwarf planet.
Initially, the astronomers mistook it for a new planet and named it Eris (EER-is).
When they further studied this 'new' planet, they decided that Eris does not have what
it takes to become a planet.
In the end, Eris along with poor Pluto were downgraded to dwarf planets.
4.
Pluto is one of the three Plutoids in the solar system
A plutoid is a dwarf planet which is located beyond the planet Neptune in the solar system.
One of the plutoid is Pluto, and the remaining two are Eris and Makemake.
3.
Atmosphere of Pluto Pluto has a flimsy, gaseous atmosphere that
is mainly composed of nitrogen gas along with methane and carbon monoxide.
Due to its inclined and elliptical orbit, the atmosphere completely freezes out when
Pluto moves away from the sun.
When Pluto moves toward the sun, the frozen atmosphere sublimates.
2.
The five Moons of Pluto Pluto has five natural satellites.
The five moons of Pluto are called Charon, Styx, Nix, Kerberos, and Hydra.
Even though it is rather small in size, there is a large amount of debris at the border
of the Kuiper Belt.
Pluto and Charon are a part of binary system, also known as double planet system.
Binary planet system means any pair of planets that have almost similar mass.
For a moon of a dwarf planet, Charon is actually rather big.
It is roughly the half the size of Pluto.
Another cool fact about Charon is its name!
As Pluto is named after the god of the underworld, its moon Charon is named after the ferryman
whose job is to transfer the dead souls across the River Styx into the underworld.
1.
Pluto is no longer called just Pluto After its demotions, Pluto has been renamed
to '134340 Pluto'.
Yikes!
Since dwarf planets and asteroids come under the same class, they use the same minor planet
designation.
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Pluto.
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