1. By Rheagan Raaz, Madison Raines, Brandon Rivera, & Nash Robertson
Pluto
By Rheagan Raaz, Madison Raines, Brandon Rivera, & Nash Robertson

2. Pluto’s Discovery Pluto was discovered in 1930 (85 years ago)
Clyde W. Tombaugh at Lowell Observatory
Name was proposed by 11 year old school girl
Clyde Tombaugh standing next to the telescope he used to discover Pluto

3. Pluto’s Moons Charon Styx Hydra Nix Kerberos -There are five moons...
The Moons of Pluto
Styx was discovered 3 years ago in 2012 when NASA scientists were searching for hazards to the New Horizons spacecraft flyby next July

4. Location & Orbit Pluto’s Orbit 250 years to complete revolution
1 day = hours or 6.4 Earth days
Orbital eccentricity of almost .25
4.44 billion km from sun at perihelion
7.38 billion km at aphelion
Pluto’s Orbit
Eccentricity of 0 is a perfect circle, of the planets Pluto’s orbit is the most circular

5. Image of Pluto… looking very cold
Physical Features
Composition:
Nitrogen, Methane, Carbon Monoxide
Rocky core surrounded by ice
Temperature: -400 to -360 degrees fahrenheit
Image of Pluto… looking very cold

6. Physical Features Cont.
Atmosphere: temporary thin layer of gases only a few feet off the surface
Weather Patterns:
winds up to 450 km/s
extremely low surface pressure (10ft=150ft dunk)

7. Photo of pluto taken by the Hubble Telescope
Topography
surface is just pure ice (dirty yellow color)
⅕ the size of the Earth (⅔ the size of our moon)
rugged northern pole
Photo of pluto taken by the Hubble Telescope

8. Interesting Facts
Since its discovery, Pluto has only completed about a third of its orbit.
Theres a feature on its surface that > looks like Micky Mouse
Pluto only periodically has an atmosphere when it is close to the sun
Pluto may be the largest dwarf planet
There is a margin of error, Eris may be the largest dwarf planet if Pluto isn’t

9. Missions and Satellites
New Horizons launched in January of 2006
Purpose is to gain knowledge of the origin of the universe by studying Pluto and other objects in the Kuiper belt.
It is a flyby mission and the first mission to Pluto
New Horizons satellite passing Jupiter

10. Works Cited http://www.pa.msu.edu/sciencet/ask_st/091692.html
McMillan, Chaisson. Astronomy Today. San Francisco: Pearson, p. 370