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Pluto is about two-thirds the diameter of Earth's Moon and probably has a rocky core surrounded by a mantle of water ice. Interesting ices like methane and nitrogen frost coat the surface. Due to its lower density, Pluto's mass is about one-sixth that of Earth's Moon.
Lying 30 to 50 times as far from the sun as Earth, Pluto's composition bears a greater resemblance to the rocky terrestrial planets than the gas giants that are its neighbors. New Horizons...
Like other Kuiper belt objects, Pluto is made primarily of ice and rock and is much smaller than the inner planets. Pluto has roughly one-sixth the mass of the Moon, and one-third its volume.
The DLR Institute of Planetary Research calculated that Pluto's density-to-radius ratio lies in a transition zone, along with Neptune's moon Triton, between icy satellites like the mid-sized moons of Uranus and Saturn, and rocky satellites such as Jupiter's Io.
Pluto is about two-thirds the diameter of Earth's Moon and probably has a rocky core surrounded by a mantle of water ice. Interesting ices like methane and nitrogen frost coat the surface. Due to its lower density, Pluto's mass is about one-sixth that of Earth's Moon.
Pluto is a dwarf planet that lies in the Kuiper [KI-per] Belt. It's an area full of icy bodies and other dwarf planets at the edge of our solar system. Pluto is known as the "King of the Kuiper Belt" – and it's the largest object in the region, even though another object similar in size, called Eris, has a slightly higher mass. One thing is ...
Pluto is a dwarf planet located in a distant region of our solar system beyond Neptune known as the Kuiper Belt. Pluto was long considered our ninth planet, but the International Astronomical Union reclassified Pluto as a dwarf planet in 2006. NASA's New Horizons was the first spacecraft to explore Pluto up close, flying by in 2015. Pluto was ...
Of the planets, only Mercury, with a rotation period of almost 59 days, and Venus, with 243 days, turn more slowly. Pluto’s axis of rotation is tilted at an angle of 120° from the perpendicular to the plane of its orbit, so that its north pole actually points 30° below the plane.
Unlike the neighboring outer planets, Pluto is not a gas or ice giant. It’s a small rocky body similar to the Earth. Formation of Pluto. Pluto is a member of the Kuiper Belt – a doughnut-shaped region beyond the orbit of Neptune that is populated with thousands of small icy bodies.
Astronomers believe that Pluto probably has a rocky core. Outside of that, but still deep in the interior, there's likely an ocean of water, covered by another layer of frozen water ice.