Pluto - NASA Science
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 ...
Pluto Facts - Science@NASA
When Pluto is close to the Sun, its surface ices sublimate (changing directly from solid to gas) and rise to temporarily form a thin atmosphere. Pluto's low gravity (about 6% of Earth's) causes the atmosphere to be much more extended in altitude than our planet's atmosphere.
In Depth | Pluto – NASA Solar System Exploration
Pluto is a complex and mysterious world with mountains, valleys, plains, craters, and maybe glaciers. Discovered in 1930, Pluto was long considered our solar system's ninth planet. But after the discovery of similar intriguing worlds deeper in the distant Kuiper Belt, icy Pluto was reclassified as a dwarf planet.
New Horizons - NASA Science
Jan 19, 2006 · New Horizons is a NASA mission to study the dwarf planet Pluto, its moons, and other objects in the Kuiper Belt, a region of the solar system that extends from about 30 AU, near the orbit of Neptune, to about 50 AU from the Sun.
Find Your Pluto Time - Science@NASA
Find Your Pluto Time. Pluto orbits on the fringes of our solar system, billions of miles away. Sunlight is much weaker there than it is here on Earth, yet it isn't completely dark. In fact, for just a moment near dawn and dusk each day, the illumination on Earth matches that of …
Pluto - NASA Science
This synthetic perspective view of Pluto, based on the latest high-resolution images to be downlinked from NASA's New Horizons spacecraft,...
Five Years after New Horizons’ Historic Flyby, Here Are 10 ... - NASA
Jul 14, 2020 · After a voyage of nearly 10 years and more than 3 billion miles, the intrepid piano-sized probe flew within 7,800 miles of Pluto. For the first time ever, we saw the surface of this distant world in spectacular, colored detail.
NASA’s Three-Billion-Mile Journey to Pluto Reaches Historic …
Jul 14, 2015 · NASA’s New Horizons spacecraft is at Pluto. After a decade-long journey through our solar system, New Horizons made its closest approach to Pluto Tuesday, about 7,750 miles above the surface — roughly the same distance from New York to Mumbai, India – making it the first-ever space mission to explore a world so far from Earth.
All About Pluto | NASA Space Place – NASA Science for Kids
Nov 8, 2024 · 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 …
Latest Images of Pluto from New Horizons - NASA
Jul 6, 2015 · These are the most recent high-resolution views of Pluto sent by NASA’s New Horizons spacecraft, including one showing the four mysterious dark spots on Pluto that have captured the imagination of the world.