Pluto By: Morgan Barksdale & Madison Dixon

What Pluto is… Pluto used to be known as the 9 th planet in our solar system. But, now it is known as a “dwarf planet.” Pluto is basically considered a “smaller solar system body” and it is categorized with asteroids such as Ceres. Also, the fact that Pluto orbits around the planet Neptune makes it a “dwarf planet”

What Pluto is made of… Scientist say that Pluto is made mostly of frozen nitrogen ice. Pluto is not like the other outer gas planets because it is the only planet after Jupiter that has no gas. It does not have gas because it is so far away from the sun that the nitrogen freezes.

Gender: Masculine Usage: Greek Mythology (Latinized), Roman Mythology Pronounced: PLOO-to It comes from the Greek word Plouton which means “wealth” This was an alternate name for Hades, who was the god of the underworld. It might have gotten this name because it is always in darkness just like the underworld Where the name “Pluto” originated…

The color… Most people assume that the color of Pluto is blue, but its not Pluto is thought to be a light brown It is expected to be light brown because of the existence of dirty methane ice on the surface Scientist don’t know the “definite” color since it has never actually been visited by a spacecraft

The size… Pluto is the tiniest planet in our solar system It is about 2080 kilometers in diameter which is about one-sixth the diameter of the earth Many moons of the other planets are larger than Pluto (If Earth was a soccer ball, Pluto would be a ping-pong ball)

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Pluto’s shape and tilt… Pluto has a spherical shape (circle) It might have this shape because of a collision of two twin comets This collision of the twin comets may have also created one of Pluto's moons, Charon Pluto has a tilt of 17 degrees Pluto’s tilt keeps it from intersecting the orbit of Neptune

The 3 moons of Pluto… Pluto’s biggest moon is known as Charon. It was discovered in 1978 and orbits about 12,000 miles away from the planet. Recently, two other moons were discovered. They were called P1 and P2. Last May, Pluto’s other two satellites (moons) were found by a team of scientist looking through the Hubble Space Telescope. They named Pluto’s new found moons Nix and Hydra.

Pictures of Pluto and Charon…

The orbit… Pluto’s orbit has been found to be non coplanar to the other eight planets. Neptune and Pluto seem to have a relationship when it comes to their orbits because in the time it takes Pluto to orbit the sun twice, Neptune has already orbited three times. Also, Pluto orbits Neptune without intersecting Neptune's orbit

Pluto’s Atmosphere… Pluto is one of four atmospheres that is mostly made up of molecular nitrogen The atmosphere is extremely thin and as Pluto arrives at its closets point to the sun the iced surface melts and as Pluto goes away from the sun it refreezes The temperature ranges from -400 to -360 Fahrenheit

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Revolution and Rotation It takes Pluto and average days to make a complete revolution It also takes Pluto sixteen hours to make one rotation on its axis

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