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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.
The geography of Pluto refers to the study and mapping of physical features across the dwarf planet Pluto. On 14 July 2015, the New Horizons spacecraft became the first spacecraft to fly by Pluto. [ 1 ] [ 2 ] During its brief flyby, New Horizons made detailed geographical measurements and observations of Pluto and its moons .
Geology of Pluto. The geology of Pluto consists of the characteristics of the surface, crust, and interior of Pluto. Because of Pluto's distance from Earth, in-depth study from Earth is difficult. Many details about Pluto remained unknown until 14 July 2015, when New Horizons flew through the Pluto system and began transmitting data back to ...
Annotated map of Charon, with IAU-approved names for features as of 2018. The geological features of Charon, the largest moon of Pluto, are being mapped by scientists using data from the New Horizons spacecraft. The team has given provisional names to the most prominent. As of April 2020, only some of the names have been officially recognized ...
Earth is rounded into an ellipsoid with a circumference of about 40,000 km. It is the densest planet in the Solar System. Of the four rocky planets, it is the largest and most massive. Earth is about eight light-minutes away from the Sun and orbits it, taking a year (about 365.25 days) to complete one revolution.
Eris (minor-planet designation: 136199 Eris) is the most massive and second-largest known dwarf planet in the Solar System. [22] It is a trans-Neptunian object (TNO) in the scattered disk and has a high- eccentricity orbit. Eris was discovered in January 2005 by a Palomar Observatory –based team led by Mike Brown and verified later that year.
A simulated view of the Pluto–Charon system showing that Pluto orbits a point outside itself. Also visible is the mutual tidal locking between the two bodies. Charon and Pluto orbit each other every 6.387 days. The two objects are gravitationally locked to one another, so each keeps the same face towards the other. This is a case of mutual ...
Pluto, discovered by Clyde Tombaugh in 1930, is an interesting target for planetary exploration, but Pluto presents significant challenges for exploration because of its small mass and great distance from Earth. In 1964, Gary Flandro of the Jet Propulsion Laboratory proposed a mission called Grand Tour, taking advantage of the fact that an ...