Planet

Pluto’s largest moon Charon was discovered in June 1978 by USNO’s James Christy when he spotted a suspicious bump on an elongated shape of Pluto and when further researched and examined, the evidence stated that Pluto had a moon. Richard Binzel and his collaborators confirmed Charon’s existence in February 1985, when the moon eclipsed Pluto, visibly reducing the total light emitted by

Astronomer Clyde W. Tombaugh discovered Pluto in 1930. In the 85 years since its discovery, it has yet to complete a single orbit of the Sun.

They were able to see features in the surface. What they saw was that it had a variety of surface features. It had mountains that are as high as 11,000 feet which can resemble the Rocky Mountains of the Earth. They also figured that methane and nitrogen ice cover most of the surface of Pluto. Which would later make them come to a conclusion that since methane and nitrogen cover the surface it is very unlikely that it would be able to support the huge peaks because it would not be strong enough. So, it is most likely that the mountains are made of a bedrock of water ice which would be stronger that the other materials. It would make sense that it would be on a bedrock of ice since the average temperature -390

Once, Pluto was considered the ninth and most distant planet from our sun. Pluto was discovered by an American astronomer name Clyde Tombaugh in 1930. But before being discovered, an American astronomer name Percival Lowell was actually the first to caught hints of Pluto’s existence in 1905. He suggested that there was another world’s gravity that was tugging at the two planets, Neptune and Uranus, from beyond. It turns out that there was another planet, the smallest and ninth planet from the sun, Pluto. The now dwarf planet was named by an 11 year old girl from Oxford, England whose name was Venetia Katharine Douglas Phair or Venetia Burney. The astronomer did predict the planet’s location in 1915, but unfortunately he died without finding

Pluto was discovered in 1930 by Clyde W. Tombaugh and was reclassified as a dwarf planet in 2006. This means that for almost eighty years, all of mankind knew that Pluto was a planet. The real trouble for Pluto came in 1992 when David Jewitt and Jane Luu discovered the first celestial objects in a region now called the Kuiper Belt (Weintraub, 2015). Pluto is considered one of the largest celestial objects in the belt (Redd, 2012). However, there are some objects in

Pluto is unlike the other planets in that it has an icy surface instead of a rocky surface, like the inner 4 (terrestrial) planets, or a deep atmosphere, like the next 4 (gas giant) planets.

According to In 1978, Charon Pluto’s largest moon was discovered. With the discovery of Charon, we could observe gravitational effect allowing for the determination of pluto’s mass. Than in 1985 and the following five years Pluto and Charon entered a period in which they eclipsed one another every few days allowing for the analysis of brightness variations this allowed for accurate calculation of size, mass, and density of both Charon and Pluto.

The discussion about Pluto’s status in our solar system is still in question. The definition of a planet is changing as society advances and as time passes. We used to believe that Pluto was a planet which orbits the sun, but in a weird way since it’s orbit is quite odd compared to other planets in our solar system. Pluto is different such that, it has five moons and crosses Neptune’s orbit. Not only does it do that, it is quite small in contrast to the other celestial body in our solar system. As society advances, we question the definition of a planet and Pluto’s status in our solar system. Our crave for knowledge and curiosity about what’s around us motivates us to explore the unknown. Our desire to learn more is due to the fact that people

With the new dates and photographs from the New Horizons mission (http://clapway.com/2015/07/11/new-horizons-journey-through-the-cosmos-124/) that made a flyby of Pluto on Tuesday, July 14th, scientists are now reporting that, unlike the earth and the moon’s orbit, Pluto and Charon’s orbit is much different. It’s so different in fact, that it is the only instance of this orbit in the Sol solar system.

The approach to the Pluto system over the last few days has yielded previously unexcelled images of the planet, as well as its moon, Charon (pronounced equally as “Sharon” or “Karen”). But Stern promised the next few days will bring forth much better photos, with ten times the resolution of previous images.

On July 14th, the New Horizons NASA space probe flew past Pluto’s surface, and began taking pictures, and sending them back to Earth. Before these pictures, scientists weren’t even sure about the color or shape of Pluto, but now there is physical proof. Some parts of pluto have lots of craters, and are darker than other spots, and that shows extreme age of the dwarf planet. The pictures also showed mountains, which are most likely made of ice, because ice is as hard as granite on Pluto because of the cold conditions of about -390 degrees Fahrenheit.

Internal Summary/Preview: After discussing the discovery of “Planet X” through the beliefs of Percival Lowell and the actual finding done by Clyde Tombaugh, we will shift to discussing how “Planet X” got the name Pluto.

Additionally, Pluto also has its own composition, structure, orbit, rotation, and as well as its own moon. Similar to Earth, Pluto also has an atmospheric and a chemical composition. Its atmospheric composition contains methane and nitrogen. Pluto’s atmosphere is said to extend as far as 1,000 miles above its surface. Its chemical composition consists of a mixture of 70% rock 30% water ice. As for Pluto’s structure, it is said that the dwarf planet has a rocky core surrounded by a mantle of water ice, with ices such as methane, carbon monoxide and nitrogen ice that is coating the surface. The dwarf planet’s diameter of 1,473 miles is said to be about two- third of our moon. Its rotation is different from Earth; it spins backward, from east

Astronomers now label Pluto as a “dwarf planet” because it does not meet all of the criteria to be a planet. It is also not alone in its orbit; it is part of a wide group of small-scale objects that have been detected revolving around the Sun beyond Neptune.

As mentioned earlier, Pluto has a rather unusual orbit. Pluto, while it is the furthest planet from the sun, for twenty years during its two-hundred and forty nine year orbit, it is actually the eighth planet, crossing over Neptune’s orbit. Regardless of the fact that the orbits of the two planets cross, their orbits will not allow for them to ever collide. This is mainly due to Pluto’s orbiting not staying in the elliptic plane. Because of its unusual orbit, Pluto travels above and below Neptune as the cross, avoiding collision. What also allows these two bodies to cross paths and avoid impact is that when Pluto is at one side of the sun, Neptune is at the other. This is a result of Pluto taking three times as long to make one orbit around the sun in comparison to Neptune.