Transcript Pluto -- The dwarf planet

PLUTO: THE DWARF PLANET
A PowerPoint by; Destin, Carley, and Eden
What Does Pluto look like
The planet Pluto is a
dwarf planet, meaning
it’s really small
compared to other
planets, even the
smaller planets like
Mars. Pluto consists of
30% water ice and 70%
rock. It’s atmosphere is
mostly methane,
nitrogen, and carbon
monoxide.
Exploration of Pluto
NASA has learned a lot about Pluto from studying images taken by
the Hubble Space Telescope. Scientists used Hubble photos to discover
four of Pluto's moons. Hubble also has taken pictures of Pluto's surface
showing dark and light areas. Even with the powerful Hubble telescope,
the images are still fuzzy. In 2006, NASA launched New Horizons,
which is the first mission to Pluto. New Horizons is a spacecraft
about the size of a piano that is flying to the outer edge of the solar
system. The spacecraft took nine years to reach Pluto. On July 14, 2015,
New Horizons arrived at the dwarf planet. By the end of 2015, New
Horizons will have spent more than five months studying Pluto and its
moons.
New Horizons has cameras that will take pictures of Pluto. It also has
scientific instruments that will gather information about Pluto. These
pictures and data will help scientists know more about what Pluto is like.
After it has finished studying Pluto and its moons, New Horizons will
study objects deeper in the Kuiper Belt.
Pluto’s Features
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 Temperature
It is very, very cold on Pluto. Scientists believe
the temperature on Pluto is 375 to 400
degrees below zero. Due to the cold
temperature of the planet is most likely
covered in ice and frost.
Pluto’s Atmosphere
It’s atmosphere is mostly methane,
nitrogen, and carbon monoxide. The
atmosphere is also much larger then
Earth’s.
Pluto’s Moons
Pluto has a total of 5
moons, Charon, Hydra,
Nix, Kerberos, and Styx.
Most of the moons are
less like spherical
moons and more like
flying disks. Each moon
is smaller then Charon
Roman or Greek God: Pluto
In the same year that it was discovered, an
11-year-old girl from England suggested it be
named "Pluto" after the Roman god of the
dead.
Pluto’s Distance from the Sun
Pluto is 29.7 astronomical units from the sun
which is about 44.4 billion kilometers
How long is the orbit and
long is a day?
Pluto’s orbit takes 248 Earth years to orbit
around the sun. One rotation (day) on Pluto is
about 6 ½ Earth days.
Diameter, mass, and density
of Pluto
The diameter of the planet is 1,430 miles
(2,302 km), only about two-thirds the
diameter of the moon. The tiny body has a
mass of only 1.31 x 1022 kilograms, about twotenths of a percent of Earth's. Pluto's small
size and low mass mean that it has a density
of 2.05 grams per cubic centimeter, about 40
percent of Earth's density.
Interesting Pluto Facts
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.
Pluto has a eccentric and inclined orbit.
This takes it between 4.4 and 7.3 billion km from the
Sun meaning Pluto is periodically closer to the Sun than
Neptune.
Pluto is the largest dwarf planet.
At one point it was thought this could be Eris. Currently the
most accurate measurements give Eris an average diameter
of 2,326km with a margin of error of 12km, while Pluto’s
diameter is 2,372km with a 2km margin of error.
References
 www.space.com/18568-how-big-is-
pluto.html
 http://www.nasa.gov/audience/forstudents/58/features/nasa-knows/what-is-pluto-58.html
 http://space-facts.com/pluto/