Search results
Results from the WOW.Com Content Network
A map of Pluto showing the names officially approved by the IAU as of 12 February 2025, along with many informal names in bold and italics.. This is a list of named geological features on Pluto, identified by scientists working with data from the New Horizons spacecraft.
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 .
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.
For premium support please call: 800-290-4726 more ways to reach us
In January 2006, the New Horizons spacecraft was launched from Cape Canaveral Space Launch Complex 41 on a mission to visit Pluto. To accelerate toward its target, the spacecraft used an Earth-and-solar escape trajectory , achieving a speed of approximately 16.26 km/s (10.10 mi/s; 58,500 km/h; 36,400 mph), and later performed a gravity assist ...
Pluto 350 aimed to send a spacecraft, weighing around 350 kilograms, to Pluto. [11] The spacecraft's minimalistic design was to allow it to travel faster and be more cost-effective, in contrast to most other big-budget projects NASA were developing at the time, such as Galileo and Cassini. Pluto 350, however, would later become controversial ...
Some members of the New Horizons team, including Alan Stern, disagree with the IAU definition and still describe Pluto as the ninth planet. [38] Pluto's satellites Nix and Hydra also have a connection with the spacecraft: the first letters of their names (N and H) are the initials of New Horizons.
Piccard Mons is a large, roughly circular mountain and likely cryovolcano on the dwarf planet Pluto. Discovered by the New Horizons spacecraft in 2015, it is located southeast of Wright Mons within the Tombaugh Regio , adjacent to the Safronov Regio and Elcano Montes.