PLANET PLUTO

Planet Pluto, also designated 134340 Pluto, is the second-largest known dwarf planet in the solar system and the tenth largest observed body directly orbiting the Sun. It orbits between 29 and 49 AU from the Sun, and was the first Kuiper Belt object to be discovered. Approximately one-fifth the mass of the Earth's Moon, Pluto is primarily composed of rock and ice. It has an eccentric orbit that is highly inclined with respect to the planets and takes it closer to the Sun than Neptune during a portion of its orbit. Pluto and its largest satellite, Charon, could be considered a binary system because they are closer in size than any of the other known celestial pair combinations in the solar system, and because the barycenter of their orbits does not lie within either body. However, the International Astronomical Union (IAU) has yet to formalize a definition for binary dwarf planets, so Charon is currently regarded as a moon of Pluto. Two smaller moons, Nix and Hydra, were discovered in 2005. Pluto is smaller than several of the natural satellites or moons in our solar system. From its discovery by Clyde Tombaugh in 1930, Pluto was considered the Solar System's ninth planet. In the late 20th and early 21st century, many similar objects were discovered in the outer solar system, most notably the trans-Neptunian object Eris which is slightly larger than Pluto. On August 24, 2006 the IAU defined the term "planet" for the first time. This definition excluded Pluto, which was then reclassified under the new category of dwarf planet along with Eris and Ceres. Pluto is also classified as the prototype of a family of trans-Neptunian objects. After the reclassification, Pluto was added to the list of minor planets and given the number 134340.

Discovery of Planet Pluto:
In 1930 Clyde Tombaugh was working on a project searching for a ninth planet at Lowell Observatory. Tombaugh's work was to systematically take pictures of the celestial sky in pairs, one to two weeks apart, then look for objects that had moved between images. On February 18, 1930, Tombaugh discovered a possible moving object on photographic plates taken on January 23 and January 29 of that year. A lesser-quality photo taken on January 20 helped confirm the movement. After the observatory worked to obtain further confirmatory photographs, news of the discovery was telegraphed to the Harvard College Observatory on March 13, 1930. Pluto would later be found on photographs dating back to March 19, 1915.

Relations to Neptune and Uranus of Planet Pluto:
The history of how Pluto was discovered is intertwined with the discoveries of Neptune and Uranus. In the 1840s, using Newtonian mechanics, both Urbain Le Verrier and John Couch Adams had correctly predicted the position of the then-undiscovered planet Neptune after analyzing perturbations in the orbit of Uranus. Theorizing the perturbations were caused by the gravitational pull of another planet, Johann Gottfried Galle discovered Neptune on September 23, 1846. Observations of Neptune in the late 19th century had astronomers starting to speculate that Uranus's orbit was also being disturbed by another planet in addition to Neptune. By 1909, William H. Pickering and Percival Lowell had suggested several possible celestial coordinates for such a planet. In May 1911, the Bulletin of the Astronomical Society of France published calculations by Indian astronomer V.B. Ketakar which predicted a location for an undiscovered planet.

Percival Lowell's influence of Planet Pluto:
Percival Lowell had significant influence on Pluto's discovery. In 1905, Lowell Observatory (founded by Lowell in 1894) started an extensive project in search of a possible ninth planet. The work continued after Lowell's death in 1916. Lowell was searching for a theoretical Planet X to match observations seen in Uranus and Neptune. Pluto is too small to have the effect on Neptune's orbit that initiated the search. After the flyby of Neptune by Voyager 2 in 1989, it was conclusively demonstrated that the discrepancies in Uranus's orbit observed by 19th century astronomers were due instead to inaccurate estimates of Neptune's mass. Once found, Pluto's faintness and lack of a visible disk cast doubt on the idea that it could be Percival Lowell's Planet X. Lowell had made a prediction of Pluto's position in 1915 which was fairly close to its actual position at that time; however, Ernest W. Brown concluded almost immediately that this was a coincidence, and this view is still held today. Tombaugh's discovery is therefore even more surprising, given that Pluto's proximity to the region predicted by Pickering, Lowell, and Ketakar was likely a mere coincidence.



Naming of Planet Pluto:
The right to name the new object belonged to the Lowell Observatory and its director, Vesto Melvin Slipher. Tombaugh urged Slipher to suggest a name quickly for the new object before someone else did. Name suggestions poured in from all over the world. Constance Lowell, Percival Lowell's widow, proposed Zeus, then Lowell, and finally her own first name, none of which met with any enthusiasm. The name Pluto was first suggested by Venetia Burney (later Venetia Phair), an eleven-year-old girl from Oxford, England. Venetia, who was interested in Classical mythology as well as astronomy, suggested the name, the Roman equivalent of Hades, in a conversation to her grandfather Falconer Madan, a former librarian of Oxford University's Bodleian Library. Madan passed the suggestion to Professor Herbert Hall Turner, Turner then cabled the suggestion to colleagues in America. The object was officially named on March 24th 1930. Each member of the Lowell Observatory was allowed to vote on a shortlist of three: "Minerva" (which was already the name for an asteroid), "Cronus" (which had garnered a bad reputation after being suggested by an unpopular astronomer named Thomas Jefferson Jackson See) and Pluto. Pluto received every single vote. The name was announced on May 1, 1930. Upon the announcement, Madan gave Venetia five pounds as a reward. The name that was retained for the object is that of the Roman god Pluto, and it is also intended to evoke the initials of the astronomer Percival Lowell.

Symbol of Planet Pluto:
Pluto's astronomical symbol is a P-L monogram,. This represents both the first two letters of the name Pluto and the initials of Percival Lowell, who had searched extensively for a ninth planet and who had founded Lowell Observatory, the observatory from which Tombaugh discovered Pluto. Pluto's astrological symbol resembles that of Neptune ( ), but has a circle in place of the middle prong of the trident ( ).

Physical characteristics of Planet Pluto:
Pluto's distance from Earth makes in-depth investigation difficult. Many details about Pluto will remain unknown until the first space probe to the system.

Appearance of Planet Pluto:
Pluto's apparent magnitude is fainter than 14 m and therefore a telescope is required for observation. To see it, a telescope of around 30 cm aperture is desirable. It looks star-like even in very large telescopes because its angular diameter is only 0.15". The color of Pluto is light brown with a very slight tint of yellow. Distance and limits on telescope technology make it currently impossible to directly photograph surface details on Pluto. Images from the Hubble Space Telescope barely show any distinguishable surface definitions or markings. The best images of Pluto derive from brightness maps created from close observations of eclipses by its largest moon, Charon. Using computer processing, observations are made in brightness factors as Pluto is eclipsed by Charon. For example, eclipsing a bright spot on Pluto makes a bigger total brightness change than eclipsing a gray spot. Using this technique, one can measure the total average brightness of the Pluto-Charon system and track changes in brightness over time.

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Mass and size of Planet Pluto:
Pluto's volume is about 0.66% that of Earth'sDue to its high albedo, Pluto's diameter and mass were overestimated for many decades after its discovery. Initially it was thought to be relatively large, with a mass comparable to Earth, but over time the estimates were revised sharply downward as observations were refined. The discovery of its satellite Charon in 1978 enabled a determination of the mass of the Pluto-Charon system by application of Newton's formulation of Kepler's third law. Assuming a single object was being observed, Pluto appeared have a mass roughly between Mercury and Mars, but once it was realized that there were in fact two celestial bodies, the estimated size of Pluto was reduced. Observations were able to determine Pluto's diameter when it is at occultation with Charon, and its shape can be resolved by telescopes using adaptive optics. Pluto's diameter is 2,390 km, which makes it the largest known object in the main Kuiper Belt.

Atmosphere of Planet Pluto:
Pluto does not have a significant atmosphere. It has a thin envelope of gas that is most likely made up of nitrogen, methane, and carbon monoxide, that develops in equilibrium with solid nitrogen and carbon monoxide ices on the surface as it approaches the Sun. As Pluto moves away from its perihelion and farther from the Sun, more of its atmosphere freezes and falls to the ground. When it returns to a closer proximity to the Sun, the temperature of Pluto's solid surface will increase, causing the nitrogen ice to sublimate into gas creating an anti-greenhouse effect. Much as sweat evaporating from the surface of human skin, this sublimation has a cooling effect and scientists have recently discovered, by use of the Submillimeter Array, that Pluto's temperature is 10 kelvins less than they expected.

Composition of Planet Pluto:
Possible structure of Pluto. 1. Frozen methane 2. Water ice 3. Silicate and water iceThe surface of Pluto is remarkably heterogeneous, as evidenced by its lightcurve, maps of its surface constructed from Hubble Space Telescope observations, and by periodic variations in its infrared spectra. The face of Pluto oriented toward Charon contains more methane ice, while the opposite face contains more nitrogen and carbon monoxide ice. This makes Pluto the second most contrasted body in the Solar System after Iapetus.



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