Pluto Characteristics

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.

In the Solar System there is nine planets total counting Pluto and eight not counting pluto. Named after the Greek god of the underworld Pluto is the ninth of the nine planets from the sun. Pluto was discovered in February 18, 1930 by Clyde Tombaugh. Plutos the only orbit planet in the Solar System after it was classified as an orbit planet back in 2006. The planet has nine moons total Charon, Hydra, Nix, Kerberos, and Styx. Although Pluto is the largest Dwarf Planet it's smaller than most moon of the other planets. Alongside Pluto is the eighth planet from the sun otherwise known as Neptune. Due to its blue coloration Neptune was named after the Roman god of the Sea. While neptunes the third largest planet with respect to mass, according to diameter it's the fourth largest. Neptune has 14 moons and a very thin collection of rings that are made up of ice and dust

My Thesis statement is Phuto was once considered to be a planet but now Pluto is the most famous dwarf planet in our solar system. Pluto is made up of ⅔ of rock and ⅓ of ice. Pluto was discovered by Clyde Tombaugh on January 23, 1930. Pluto is very very cold you can't even imagine how much colder it is than Antarctic.If that happen in Earth the air would turn into snow that's how cold it would be about 230 degrees below zero Celsius. When you want to see Pluto up in the sky you can't even see Pluto with your naked eye. Pluto is very hard to see once you look in the telescope it look a little like a star even with the telescope.

In the outer limits of our solar system there is a planet unlike any other, Pluto. Pluto was discovered in February of 1930 by an American astronomer, Clyde Tombaugh. It is the only planet to have been discovered by an American. All though we have known of the existence of Pluto for over thirty years now, there are still many mysteries surrounding this celestial body. Being the farthest planet has made it difficult to study Pluto, Adding to the obscurity of this strange planet is that the capability to send spacecraft such distances has never been achieved. Through the wonders of science and astronomy, there are many things that can be determined, concluded, and hypothesized about this obscure planet.

People love Pluto, whether they are young or old it does not seem to matter. The ‘planet’ (and Walt Disney’s beloved character) holds a special place in a lot of people’s hearts. Yet, this only became clear to me after reading The Pluto Files by Neil deGrasse Tyson. I remember when Pluto’s classification changed from being a planet to a dwarf planet however, I was never aware of how big of a controversy it caused. The fact that there was a conference deciding whether or not we should keep Pluto as our ninth planet was not something I was aware of previously to this book. Tyson does a wonderful job explaining the story of Pluto and not only the how the planet was reclassified but also why.

Clyde Tombaugh, during his discovery of the planet Pluto, was a farm boy and an ameteur astronomer employed by Arizona’s Lowell Observatory in search of the mysterious Planet X. During his search, the roaring twenties was in full swing and during this time,

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

Secondly,what is pluto,a planet,a planet oid or a comet? The outward-bound voyager one and two spacecraft were both launched in 1977,which started the drama about Pluto. Pluto is twice the size of Ceres and the largest known asteroid.

Pluto’s orbit is very different from the other planets in the solar system. There are three criterias you have to meet in order to be considered a planet. It has to orbit the Sun, be in the shape of a

The New Horizons space mission taught astronomers a lot about Pluto that cannot be seen with any telescope on Earth. For example, “this fascinating world has blue skies, spinning moons, …. And it snows - but the snow is red” (“Solar System Exploration: Pluto: In Depth.”). In addition to this, astronomers also discovered that Pluto had more moons than they originally thought.

Pluto was not named until March 24, 1930. Before this new planet’s name was chosen, Constance, Cronus, Lowell, Minerva, Percival, and Zeus were other suggested possibilities. These suggestions came from a number of sources such as The New York Times and Percival Lowell’s widow, Constance Lowell. The name “Pluto” came from an eleven year old girl by the name of Venetia Burney of Oxford, England, who was interested in both astronomy and ancient mythology. She suggested it to her grandfather who forwarded the name to the Lowell Observatory. Pluto, in Roman mythology, was the third son of Saturn, and the god of the underworld, and the brother of Jupiter, Neptune, and Juno. Although, astronomers liked this name because of the Roman mythology behind it, they also liked it due to the fact that it started with the letters “Pl” and they were the initials of the original person who caused astronomers to look for Pluto, Percival Lowell. To the right is Pluto’s scientific symbol which also consists of Lowell’s initials.

In 1906 Percival Lowell, an American mathematician and Astronomer, initiated a research project to find the infamous “Planet X,” the possible ninth planet. Sadly, Lowell died before completing the project. However, his research captured two pictures of Pluto that no one recognized as the ninth planet. After Lowell's death, the search did not resume until the late 1920’s, when Tombaugh was entrusted with the “PLanet X” project. At the time Tombaugh was 23 and spent a year photographing the night sky and analyzing the images. On February 18th, 1930, Tombaugh discovered a possible moving object in an image taken that Janurary. After this more proof was found that “Planet X” had been discovered (Williams

First to fall, Pluto was discovered in 1930. The planet is not even 100 years old. The name Pluto was named after the Greek god, Hades. Pluto is considered to be the smallest planet. Pluto, the 9th planet, is said to be 1,400 miles wide.

The greatest astronomical discovery that I always remember was the demotion of Pluto from planet to dwarf. Until this discovery, scientists thought that there were nine planets. Muggle school children (and magical school children) remembered the names of the nine planets using mnemonics like "My Very Easy Method Just Shows Us Nine Planets" and "My Very Educated Mother Just Served Us Nine Pizzas" (Wikipedia). These mnemonics were easy ways to remember the nine plants; Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune, and Pluto. However, in August 2006, the International Astronomical Union met and changed the definition of a planet, thus downgrading Pluto and changing planetary mnemonics forever.

b. Jennifer Rosenberg in her article Pluto Discovered writes, “It took a year of detailed, painstaking work, but Tombaugh did find Planet X. The discovery occurred on February 18, 1930 while Tombaugh was carefully examining a set of photographic plates created by the telescope”. Tombaugh officially announced the discovery of the ninth planet on March 13, 1930.