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Pluto & Kuiper Belt. Basic Properties/Statistics. Tilt: 12.3 degrees Direction of Rotation on its Axis: Length of Day: 6.39 earth days Length of Year: 247.7 earth years How far from the Sun: 5.9 billion km
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Basic Properties/Statistics • Tilt: 12.3 degrees • Direction of Rotation on its Axis: • Length of Day: 6.39 earth days • Length of Year: 247.7 earth years • How far from the Sun: 5.9 billion km • Night/Day Average Temp: -350* to -400* F, astronomers don’t know difference between day and night • Mass Compared to Earth: .0021 • Density Compared to Earth: 2000 kg/m^3 • General Structure & Composition: comp is unknown, 70% rock, 30% water
Atmosphere • Made up of Nitrogen with some Carbon Monoxide & Methane • Atmospheric pressure is low • When pluto is away from the sun it becomes so cold that the elements solidify but when it comes closer to the sun, it gets heated up and the elements become a gas and actually make up a atmoshere.
Rings • NO RINGS
Surface Features • 70% rock, 30% water
Moons • 5 moons • 1 main moon- Charon- 12,000 miles apart from Pluto. It orbits around Pluto in 6.4 earth days. A Pluto day, or one Pluto rotation is also 6.4 earth days. This means that Charon hovers over the same sport on Pluto’s surface, and the same side of Charons always faces Charon. • 2 smaller moons- Nix and Hydra; they are two to three times farther away from Pluto and Charon. They are thought to be just 31 to 62 miles wide each. • 2 smaller smaller moons- P4 and P5; P4 is 8 to 21 miles wide. P5 is thought to be irregular in shape and between 6 and 15 miles wide.
People • Clyde W. Tombough at Lowell Observatory in Arizona found Pluto in 1930
Probes • Voyager 2- August 20, 1977, meant for Neptune and to discover if there were any planets past it. Found large numbers of objects in the Kuiper Belt. • New Horizons- January 6, 2006, planned to reach Pluto in 2015.
Comets • Leftover from the formation of stars and planets. Started as big chunks of rock and ice from the Ort cloud. Comets hit each other and they fall out of orbit into the Solar System. • Ison is passing by the sun in the fall of 2013. more than 112,000 lbs of dust comes out of it every minute. It goes 125,000 mph.
The Plutonians • Bradon Fortin • Brandon Gold • Justin Friend • Alex Steinbaum
Work Cited • http://www.bobthealien.co.uk/plutocha.htm • http://nineplanets.org/pluto.html • http://www.space.com/43-pluto-the-ninth-planet-that-was-a-dwarf.html • http://solarsystem.nasa.gov/planets/profile.cfm?Object=Pluto