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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 Earth. [1]
The surface constitutional data of Pluto shows that the permanent arctic zones are co-located with N 2-rich surface. [14] A long period of continuous winter, typically lasting more than a century, is experienced by the permanent arctic zones in every Pluto orbital period of 248 years over the 2.8 million year obliquity cycle. [1]
Pluto is the only trans-Neptunian object with a known atmosphere. [7] Its closest analog is the atmosphere of Triton, although in some aspects it resembles even the atmosphere of Mars. [8] [9] The atmosphere of Pluto has been studied since the 1980s by way of earth-based observation of occultations of stars by Pluto [10] [11] and spectroscopy. [12]
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.
The observational data in the fits has been an evolving set, including: ranges (distances) to planets measured by radio signals from spacecraft, [11] direct radar-ranging of planets, two-dimensional position fixes (on the plane of the sky) by VLBI of spacecraft, transit and CCD telescopic observations of planets and small bodies, and laser ...
The instrument is designed to "taste" the atmosphere of Pluto, and design is oriented towards being low weight, low power, and understanding the nature of atmospheric loss from Pluto. [ 11 ] PEPPSI is a compact low-power ion measurement device, and it is a time of flight type of instrument [ 5 ] The design detects ions from about 10 keV to 1 ...
The new data also enabled calculation that its rotation period is about 5.47 hours. [9] On 15 April 2024, the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) conducted an observation of the Kuiper Belt object Arawn for a duration of 1 minute and 4 seconds using its NIRCam instrument in Moving Target mode with published findings expected at a later date. [19]