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Pluto
Pluto (minor-planet designation: 134340 Pluto) is a dwarf planet in the Kuiper belt, a ring of Trans-Neptunian object, bodies beyond the orbit of Neptune. It is the ninth-largest and tenth-most-massive known object to directly orbit the Sun. It is the largest known trans-Neptunian object by volume by a small margin, but is less massive than Eris (dwarf planet), Eris. Like other Kuiper belt objects, Pluto is made primarily of ice and rock and is much smaller than the inner planets. Pluto has roughly one-sixth the mass of the Moon and one-third its volume. Originally considered a planet, its classification was changed when astronomers adopted a new definition of planet, definition of ''planet''. Pluto has a moderately Orbital eccentricity, eccentric and Inclination, inclined orbit, ranging from from the Sun. Light from the Sun takes 5.5 hours to reach Pluto at its orbital distance of . Pluto's eccentric orbit periodically brings it closer to the Sun than Neptune, but a stabl ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Pluto Monogram (bold)
Pluto ( minor-planet designation: 134340 Pluto) is a dwarf planet in the Kuiper belt, a ring of bodies beyond the orbit of Neptune. It is the ninth-largest and tenth-most-massive known object to directly orbit the Sun. It is the largest known trans-Neptunian object by volume by a small margin, but is less massive than Eris. Like other Kuiper belt objects, Pluto is made primarily of ice and rock and is much smaller than the inner planets. Pluto has roughly one-sixth the mass of the Moon and one-third its volume. Originally considered a planet, its classification was changed when astronomers adopted a new definition of ''planet''. Pluto has a moderately eccentric and inclined orbit, ranging from from the Sun. Light from the Sun takes 5.5 hours to reach Pluto at its orbital distance of . Pluto's eccentric orbit periodically brings it closer to the Sun than Neptune, but a stable orbital resonance prevents them from colliding. Pluto has five known moons: Charon, th ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Pluto Symbol (large Orb, Bold)
Pluto (minor-planet designation: 134340 Pluto) is a dwarf planet in the Kuiper belt, a ring of Trans-Neptunian object, bodies beyond the orbit of Neptune. It is the ninth-largest and tenth-most-massive known object to directly orbit the Sun. It is the largest known trans-Neptunian object by volume by a small margin, but is less massive than Eris (dwarf planet), Eris. Like other Kuiper belt objects, Pluto is made primarily of ice and rock and is much smaller than the inner planets. Pluto has roughly one-sixth the mass of the Moon and one-third its volume. Originally considered a planet, its classification was changed when astronomers adopted a new definition of planet, definition of ''planet''. Pluto has a moderately Orbital eccentricity, eccentric and Inclination, inclined orbit, ranging from from the Sun. Light from the Sun takes 5.5 hours to reach Pluto at its orbital distance of . Pluto's eccentric orbit periodically brings it closer to the Sun than Neptune, but a stabl ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Pluto (mythology)
In Religion in ancient Greece, ancient Greek religion and Greek mythology, mythology, Pluto () was the ruler of the Greek underworld, underworld. The earlier name for the god was Hades, which became more common as the name of the underworld itself. Pluto represents a more positive concept of the god who presides over the afterlife. ''Ploutōn'' was frequently conflation, conflated with Plutus, Ploûtos, the Greek god of wealth, because mineral wealth was found underground, and because as a chthonic god Pluto ruled the deep earth that contained the seeds necessary for a bountiful harvest. The name ''Ploutōn'' came into widespread usage with the Eleusinian Mysteries, in which Pluto was venerated as both a stern ruler and a loving husband to Persephone. The couple received souls in the afterlife and are invoked together in religious inscriptions, being referred to as ''Plouton'' and as ''Kore'' respectively. Hades, by contrast, had few temples and religious practices associated wit ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
New Horizons
''New Horizons'' is an Interplanetary spaceflight, interplanetary space probe launched as a part of NASA's New Frontiers program. Engineered by the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory (APL) and the Southwest Research Institute (SwRI), with a team led by Alan Stern, the spacecraft was launched in 2006 with the primary mission to perform a Planetary flyby, flyby study of the Pluto system in 2015, and a secondary mission to fly by and study one or more other Kuiper belt objects (KBOs) in the decade to follow, which became a mission to 486958 Arrokoth. It is the List of artificial objects leaving the Solar System, fifth space probe to achieve the escape velocity needed to leave the Solar System. On January 19, 2006, ''New Horizons'' was launched from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, Cape Canaveral Space Force Station by an Atlas V rocket directly into an Earth-and-solar Escape velocity, escape trajectory with a speed of about . It was the fastest (average speed w ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Moons Of Pluto
The dwarf planet Pluto has five natural satellites. In order of distance from Pluto, they are Charon, Styx, Nix, Kerberos, and Hydra. Charon, the largest, is mutually tidally locked with Pluto, and is massive enough that Pluto and Charon are sometimes considered a binary dwarf planet. History The innermost and largest moon, Charon, was discovered by James Christy on 22 June 1978, nearly half a century after Pluto was discovered. This led to a substantial revision in estimates of Pluto's size, which had previously assumed that the observed mass and reflected light of the system were all attributable to Pluto alone. Two additional moons were imaged by astronomers of the Pluto Companion Search Team preparing for the ''New Horizons'' mission and working with the Hubble Space Telescope on 15 May 2005, which received the provisional designations S/2005 P 1 and S/2005 P 2. The International Astronomical Union officially named these moons Nix (Pluto II, ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Dwarf Planet
A dwarf planet is a small planetary-mass object that is in direct orbit around the Sun, massive enough to be hydrostatic equilibrium, gravitationally rounded, but insufficient to achieve clearing the neighbourhood, orbital dominance like the eight classical planets of the Solar System. The prototypical dwarf planet is Pluto, which for decades was regarded as a planet before the "dwarf" concept was adopted in 2006. Dwarf planets are capable of being geologically active, an expectation that was borne out in 2015 by the ''Dawn (spacecraft), Dawn'' mission to and the ''New Horizons'' mission to Pluto. planetary geology, Planetary geologists are therefore particularly interested in them. Astronomers are in general agreement that at least the List of possible dwarf planets#Likeliest dwarf planets, nine largest candidates are dwarf planets – in rough order of diameter, , , , , , , , , and . A considerable uncertainty remains over the tenth largest candidate , which may thus be co ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Kuiper Belt
The Kuiper belt ( ) is a circumstellar disc in the outer Solar System, extending from the orbit of Neptune at 30 astronomical units (AU) to approximately 50 AU from the Sun. It is similar to the asteroid belt, but is far larger—20 times as wide and 20–200 times as massive. Like the asteroid belt, it consists mainly of small Solar System body, small bodies or remnants from when the Formation and evolution of the Solar System, Solar System formed. While many asteroids are composed primarily of rock (geology), rock and metal, most Kuiper belt objects are composed largely of frozen Volatile (astrogeology), volatiles (termed "ices"), such as methane, ammonia, and water. The Kuiper belt is home to most of the objects that astronomers generally accept as dwarf planets: 90482 Orcus, Orcus, Pluto, Haumea, 50000 Quaoar, Quaoar, and Makemake. Some of the Solar System's natural satellite, moons, such as Neptune's Triton (moon), Triton and Saturn's Phoebe (moon), Phoebe, may ha ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ralph (New Horizons)
Ralph is a science instrument aboard the robotic ''New Horizons'' spacecraft, which was launched in 2006. Ralph is a visible and infrared imager and spectrometer to provide maps of relevant astronomical targets based on data from that hardware. Ralph has two major subinstruments, LEISA and MVIC. MVIC stands for ''Multispectral Visible Imaging Camera'' and is a color imaging device, while LEISA originally stood for ''Linear Etalon Imaging Spectral Array'' and is an infrared imaging spectrometer for spaceflight. LEISA observes 250 discrete wavelengths of Infrared, infrared light from 1.25 to 2.5 micrometers. MVIC is a Push broom scanner, pushbroom scanner type of design with seven channels, including red, blue, near-infrared (NIR), and methane. Overview Ralph is one of seven major instruments aboard ''New Horizons'' which was launched in 2006 and flew by the dwarf planet Pluto in 2015. At Pluto, Ralph enables the observation of many aspects including: *geology of Pluto *form *struct ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Trans-Neptunian Object
A trans-Neptunian object (TNO), also written transneptunian object, is any minor planet in the Solar System that orbits the Sun at a greater average distance than Neptune, which has an orbital semi-major axis of 30.1 astronomical units (AU). Typically, TNOs are further divided into the classical and resonant objects of the Kuiper belt, the scattered disc and detached objects with the sednoids being the most distant ones. As of February 2025, the catalog of minor planets contains 1006 numbered and more than 4000 unnumbered TNOs. However, nearly 5900 objects with semimajor axis over 30 AU are present in the MPC catalog, with 1009 being numbered. The first trans-Neptunian object to be discovered was Pluto in 1930. It took until 1992 to discover a second trans-Neptunian object orbiting the Sun directly, 15760 Albion. The most massive TNO known is Eris, followed by Pluto, , , and . More than 80 satellites have been discovered in orbit of trans-Neptunian objects. TNOs ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Plutino
In astronomy, the plutinos are a dynamical group of trans-Neptunian objects that orbit in 2:3 mean-motion resonance with Neptune. This means that for every two orbits a plutino makes, Neptune orbits three times. The dwarf planet Pluto is the largest member as well as the namesake of this group. The next largest members are , , and . Plutinos are named after mythological creatures associated with the underworld. Plutinos form the inner part of the Kuiper belt and represent about a quarter of the known Kuiper belt objects. They are also the most populous known class of resonant trans-Neptunian objects ''(also see adjunct box with hierarchical listing)''. The first plutino after Pluto itself, (385185) 1993 RO, was discovered on September 16, 1993. Orbits Origin It is thought that the objects that are currently in mean orbital resonances with Neptune initially followed a variety of independent heliocentric paths. As Neptune migrated outward early in the Solar System's his ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
