PLANET SEARCH

FUTURES:
Winner of Sir Arthur Clarke Award for 'Best Written Presentation', 2005

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Pluto
On the Edge
  • Diameter: 1,432 miles/2,304 km
  • Distance from Sun: 3,675 million miles/5,914 M km
  • Length of Year: 248 Earth years
  • Rotation: 6.4 Earth years
  • Gravity (x Earth's): 0.065
  • Axial Tilt: 122.5 degrees
  • Average Temperature: -233C
Pluto, the outermost planet (and according to some astronomers, not a true planet at all) and its relatively large moon Charon, form a 'double world', with Charon orbiting almost vertical to the plane of Pluto's orbit. Pluto & Charon

Here I have shown the surface of Pluto (foreground) as being similar to that of Neptune's satellite Triton, with nitrogen/methane ice and a thin atmosphere, produced only when Pluto is at perihelion, its closest to the Sun ~ actually inside the orbit of Neptune.

 Pluto

Pluto and Charon. Charon is bluer than Pluto and appears grey, while the surface of Pluto is reddish, so the two are of different composition. Pluto is the only planet to rotate synchronously with the orbit of its satellite, so that each always sees the same face of the other. From Futures.

BUT IS PLUTO A PLANET? CLICK HERE!

 

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