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Pluto (minor-planet designation: 134340 Pluto) is a dwarf planet in the Kuiper belt, a ring of bodies beyond the orbit of Neptune. It is the ninth-largest and tenth-most-massive known object to directly orbit the Sun. It is the largest known trans-Neptunian object by volume by a small margin, but is less massive than Eris.
Pluto's reign. For decades, students learned the phrase "My Very Educated Mother Just Served Us Nine Pizzas" to remember the order of the planets in the solar system: Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars ...
He discovered Pluto in 1930, the first object to be discovered in what would later be identified as the Kuiper belt. At the time of discovery, Pluto was considered the ninth planet, but it was reclassified as a dwarf planet in 2006. Tombaugh also discovered many asteroids, and called for the serious scientific research of unidentified flying ...
A vote at the 2006 International Astronomical Union conference stripped Pluto of its planet title, dubbing it a dwarf planet because other bodies larger than Pluto were discovered in the solar system.
The dwarf planet Ceres, as imaged by NASA's Dawn spacecraft. As of 2024, only two missions have targeted and explored dwarf planets up close. On March 6, 2015, the Dawn spacecraft entered orbit around Ceres, becoming the first spacecraft to visit a dwarf planet. [89] On July 14, 2015, the New Horizons space probe flew by Pluto and its five moons.
Pluto was considered a planet up until 2006, when researchers at the International Astronomical Union voted to "demote" it to dwarf planet.
The number of dwarf planets in the Solar System is unknown. Estimates have run as high as 200 in the Kuiper belt [1] and over 10,000 in the region beyond. [2] However, consideration of the surprisingly low densities of many large trans-Neptunian objects, as well as spectroscopic analysis of their surfaces, suggests that the number of dwarf planets may be much lower, perhaps only nine among ...
First "close up" picture of Ceres taken in December 2014; probe entered orbit in March 2015; first dwarf planet visited by a spacecraft, largest asteroid visited by a spacecraft. 134340 Pluto: 2376.6 1930 New Horizons: 2015: 12,500: 10.5 Flyby; first trans-Neptunian object visited, most distant object visited by a spacecraft (at the time of the ...