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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 Italian form of the name is Pluto, taken by some commentators [195] to refer specifically to Plutus as the god of wealth who would preside over the torment of those who hoarded or squandered it in life. [196] Dante's Pluto is greeted as "the great enemy" [197] and utters the famously impenetrable line Papé Satàn, papé Satàn aleppe.
Clyde William Tombaugh (/ ˈ t ɒ m b aʊ /; February 4, 1906 – January 17, 1997) was an American astronomer.He discovered Pluto in 1930, the first object to be discovered in what would later be identified as the Kuiper belt.
Pluto was considered a planet up until 2006, when researchers at the International Astronomical Union voted to "demote" it to dwarf planet.
Since Pluto was reclassified in 2006, discoveries of Plutonian moons since then follow the minor-planet system: thus Nix and Hydra, discovered in 2005, were S/2005 P 2 and S/2005 P 1, but Kerberos and Styx, discovered in 2011 and 2012 respectively, were S/2011 (134340) 1 and S/2012 (134340) 1. That said, there has been some unofficial use of ...
Why is Pluto in Aquarius significant? As Pluto, the planet of growth, and evolution, moves into the sign of Aquarius, astrologers are bracing themselves for individual change and change on a ...
Many of these shared several of Pluto's key orbital characteristics, and Pluto started being seen as the largest member of a new class of objects, the plutinos. It became clear that either the larger of these bodies would also have to be classified as planets, or Pluto would have to be reclassified, much as Ceres had been reclassified after the ...
For example, Charon’s collision with Pluto would have raised the temperature of the the dwarf planet’s ice shell, which may have caused it to melt and form a subsurface ocean.