Best-known dwarf planet, icy/rocky, famous heart-shaped plain, visited by New Horizons.
Dwarf planet: Round, but shares its orbit with other rubble. Every kind of thing there is →
Its position moves, so there is no fixed place on a map to point at. The Planetarium works out where it is for your own place and date.
A faint point of light — a star chart across several nights shows it moving.
Honest, not glamorous — why the pictures here are drawn.
Pluto is about 1/6 the size of Earth. In weight, very light -- about 1/500th of Earth. About 40 times Earth's distance from the Sun. Sunlight takes 5.5 hours to reach Pluto — on average, because that distance changes as it goes round. Pluto was found in 1930, and it will not finish that first observed lap around the Sun until 2178. Its day: 6.4 Earth days.
| Across | 2 377 km |
|---|---|
| Distance from the Sun, on average | 39 AU ~5.9 billion km · sunlight takes 5.5 hours |
| Once round its orbit | 247.9 Earth years |
| One day there | 6.4 days |
| Temperature | -229 °C (from -233 to -223) |
| Made of, among other things | nitrogen, methane, water |
Nobody flew a tape measure out there. Every number on this page was worked out from the ground:
Clear tonight? The Planetarium will show you what is worth a look. Then just go out.