Caldwell 103 By NASA Hubble

Ten interesting facts about Pluto

Here is a list of some interesting facts about Pluto. A dwarf planet with a very different geology than previously thought, and despite being a small celestial body - Pluto has its own moons.

Pluto was known as the smallest planet in the solar system and the ninth planet from the sun until it was reclassified by the International Astronomical Union in 2006.

Today, Pluto is called a dwarf planet. A dwarf planet orbits the sun just like other planets, but it is smaller. It is large enough for its gravity to pull it into the shape of a ball but it is too small to clear other objects and debris out of its path around the sun.

Pluto was discovered on February 18th, 1930 by the Lowell Observatory. For the 76 years between Pluto being discovered and the time it was reclassified as a dwarf planet it completed under a third of its orbit around the Sun.

On average, Pluto is more than 3.6 billion miles (5.8 billion kilometers) away from the sun. That is about 40 times as far from the sun as Earth is. Pluto orbits the sun in an oval like a racetrack. Because of its oval orbit, Pluto is sometimes closer to the sun than at other times. At its closest point to the sun Pluto is still billions of miles away but is actually closer than Neptune.

This dwarf planet has five moons. Its largest moon is named Charon (KAIR-uhn). Charon is about half the size of Pluto. 

Pluto has four other, much smaller, moons. They are named Nix, Hydra, Kerberos, and Styx. They were discovered in 2005, 2005, 2011, and 2012, respectively. NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope took pictures of the new moons. All four are small.

Observations of Pluto’s surface by the New Horizons spacecraft revealed a variety of surface features, including mountains that reach as high as 11,000 feet (3,500 meters), comparable to the Rocky Mountains on Earth. While methane and nitrogen ice cover much of the surface of Pluto, these materials are not strong enough to support such enormous peaks, so scientists suspect that the mountains are formed on a bedrock of water ice.

Pluto’s surface is one of the coldest places in the solar system, at roughly minus 375 degrees Fahrenheit (minus 225 degrees Celsius). When compared with past images, pictures of Pluto taken by the Hubble Space Telescope revealed that the dwarf planet had apparently grown redder over time, apparently due to seasonal changes.

When Pluto is closer to the sun, its surface ices thaw and temporarily form a thin atmosphere, consisting mostly of nitrogen, with some methane. 

Pluto’s low gravity, which is a little more than one-twentieth that of Earth’s, causes this atmosphere to extend much higher in altitude than Earth’s.

sources: solarsystem.nasa and space.com

image credit: NASA/JPL - Lowell Observatory Archives 

what if...................... i was chilling............ and then a tumblr infographic said only 8% of all the planets that will ever exist have already been formed and earth is one of them there are 92% more planets to exist we're not alone we're just first we're not alone we're just early if the entire universe was 100 planets we would be in the first eight and the other ninety-two don't exist yet new planets will be born as ours becomes a faded memory to the vast expanse of the universe we're not alone we're just early our entire existence is a smear on the windscreen of the cosmos the universe is unimaginably big but unimaginably small compared to what it will be we're not alone we won't be alone we're just early

shit man this got me emotional

my favourite greetings to the universe from the Voyager spacecraft 💌

sometimes before i go to sleep, i like to get my cellphone, put my headphones on, play city lights by blanche and close my eyes and pretend that i am just floating on a rock in the outer space, all alone in the danger zone

Neptune Through the Years by James Webb Space Telescope

Comet Lovejoy’s long needle-like tail by Fritz Helmut Hemmerich

Happy Valentines day

Taken Under the ‘Wing’ of the Small Magellanic Cloud https://go.nasa.gov/2uC4d0c