PLUTO

Percival Lowell started the discovery of Pluto deemed Planet X in 1894 till his death in The search for Planet X did not resume until until 1929 due to a ten year legal battle since Constance Lowell wanted to obtain her late husbands legacy for herself. Discovered February 18 th, 1930 by Clyde Tombaugh at the Lowell Observatory in Flagstaff Arizona. In its original discovery, Lowell had believed the mass for Planet X was approximately 7 Earths. Not until 2006, did we find information that it is 1/459 the size of Earth. DISCOVERY

Almost 1000 suggestions were given to the Lowell Observatory to name the new planet. The name Pluto was given by a girl named Venetia Burney, a girl from Oxford, England. She believed the planet should be named after the god of the underworld. The observatory came down to three choices. Minerva, Cronus, and Pluto The choice came down to Pluto because a lot of people liked the fact that the first two initials of Pluto was Pl and represented the first two initials of Percival Lowell. On a Side note, Venetia Burney was given 5 pounds for the name, approximately 450 pounds today. The planet is also the coldest and farthest away from the Sun at the time. NAME

FACTS Mass: 13 billion ( x Earth) Diameter is 1473 miles, 2/3 of the moon About the same length of driving from Pensacola, Florida to Denver, Colorado Moons – 5 Names of the Moons: Charon, Nix, Hydra, Kerberos and Styx Orbit Distance - 5,874,000,000 km Orbit Period Earth Years Surface Temperature – (-229) degrees Celsius

INFORMATION The planet is not offset at its center, as its radius is the same at its poles and its equator. It is located in the Kuiper belt which is a ring of bodies beyond Neptune. Pluto was considered a planet till 2005 with the discovery of Eris which prompted a new definition for what a planet is. In 2006 Pluto was named a Dwarf planet. Pluto and Charon is considered a binary system as they barycenter( the center of mass of two more more bodies orbiting each other) do not like within each body. Despite this the International Astronomical Union (IAU) has no known definition. Thus Charon will be considered a moon of Pluto. Kerberos its smallest moon is 7.4miles

ATMOSPHERE Pluto's atmosphere is only present when closest to the sun. The warmth from the sun heats up the frozen ices of nitrogen, methane, and carbon monoxide on the surface. These ices vaporize to form an atmosphere. When Pluto gets farther away from the Sun its Atmosphere freezes and goes back into its surface. There are two distinct layers of haze that surround Pluto, this haze is due to ethylene and acetylene sinking into the atmosphere and condense. The ultraviolet sunlight acts on this haze and converts it to Tholins (dark hydrocarbons) and gives Pluto its distinct color.

SURFACE The Surface of Pluto mostly consists of mountains made out of water ice and trenches and possible ice volcanoes The mountains on Pluto are suspected to be formed on a bedrock of water ice as the materials (methane and nitrogen ice) to form this mountain would not be strong enough to support it. Sputnik Planum Located in the Tombaugh Reggio. Located in this heart-shaped plain. The Sputnik Planum is surrounded by rocky surfaces such as mountain ranges. It appears to be very flat. Since this region lacks any craters caused be meteorites, scientists believe this area is very young on a geologic timescale. Its possible that the region is still be developed and changed by geologic processes. The region is named after Earth’s first artificial satellite.

CONTINUED……. There is speculation with scientists that underneath Pluto’s surface is a possible ocean. With the recent New Horizons mission, there has been evidence of flowing ice. The nitrogen ice is similar to Earth’s glaciers and appear to flow around the elevated islands in the Tombaugh area. There is a large possibility that there is an an interior ocean that is driving the geologic activity due to the flowing ice and the smooth region on Pluto’s surface. Though it has not been totally proven yet, there is a high chance that we will find information overtime to prove that there is an ocean.

NEW HORIZON’S MISSION New Horizons is a space probe designed for NASA’s Space Frontier program. The space probe was designed in Johns Hopkins University (APL) and the Southwest Research Institute The Team was led by S. Alan Stern. The space probes goal was launched to study Pluto as well as the Kuiper Belt. The satellite was launched on January 19, 2006 from Cape Canaveral Florida by an Atlas rocket The primary mission duration is around 9.5 years.

CONTINUED The satellite was offline for most of its time with a few checkups from NASA after launch till December 6, 2014 for its Pluto encounter. It got to Jupiter on February 28, January 15, 2015 the New Horizons spacecraft got to Pluto Its closest distance to Pluto was approximately 7800 miles. A majority of the information about Pluto is from the New Horizon’s mission. The New horizons satellite is continuing past Pluto further into the belt to its approach to 2014 MU 69 in 2019as a flyby target

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