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What Is Pluto? | What Is Pluto? | 3-Minute Space Video | Pluto

In this 3-minute space video, we explain what Pluto is, how it was discovered, and why it is no longer considered a planet. Learn about the fascinating features and history of this dwarf planet in the Kuiper belt.



Pluto is a dwarf planet, a Kuiper Belt object and a trans-Neptunian object.
Clyde Tombaugh, a U.S. astronomer, discovered Pluto in 1930. That same year, Venetia Burney, an 11-year-old girl from England, suggested it be named “Pluto” after the Roman god of the dead.
Pluto is a dwarf planet. A dwarf planet is round and orbits the sun just like the eight major planets of the solar system. A dwarf planet also is much smaller than a planet, but it is not a moon because a dwarf planet orbits the sun.

On average, Pluto is a distance of 39.5 astronomical units, or AU, from the sun. That is almost 40 times farther from the sun than Earth is. Because of its elliptical orbit, Pluto is not the same distance from the sun all the time. Pluto’s closest point to the sun is 29.7 AU. Getting this close means that Pluto sometimes crosses Neptune’s path. Neptune is 30 AU from the sun. Pluto’s farthest point away from the sun is 49.3 AU. Pluto is in a region called the Kuiper (KY-per) Belt. The Kuiper Belt is a large donut of thousands of small, icy objects that orbit the sun beyond Neptune.

Pluto is only 2,370 kilometers (1,473 miles) wide. That is about half the width of the United States and smaller than Earth’s moon. Pluto takes 248 Earth years to make one revolution around the sun. That means one year on Pluto is about 248 Earth years. Pluto takes 6 1/2 Earth days/nights to rotate, so one day on Pluto is about 6 1/2 days/nights on Earth.

Pluto has five known moons. Its largest moon, named Charon (KAIR-uhn), is about half the size of Pluto. The U.S. Naval Observatory discovered Charon in 1978. Astronomers discovered Pluto’s four other moons — Nix, Hydra, Kerberos and Styx — using the Hubble Space Telescope. Each of these four moons is much smaller than Charon.

Scientists have found other objects like Pluto that are called dwarf planets. The first five dwarf planets that astronomers have identified in the solar system are Pluto, Ceres, Makemake ), Haumea and Eris . Scientists believe many more dwarf planets will be discovered.

Pluto itself may be classified in other ways. The dwarf planet is called a trans-Neptunian object. Trans-Neptunian objects are any objects in the solar system that have an orbit beyond Neptune. Pluto is also a Kuiper Belt object. The Kuiper Belt is a donut-shaped region of icy objects beyond the orbit of Neptune.


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Tags: Pluto, space, video, dwarf planet, Kuiper belt