Saturday, February 17, 2018

Pluto: Planet or Ice Rock?

What actually is Pluto?

Some say it's a planet, some say it's nothing.

NASA states that Pluto is a dwarf planet. It travels and orbits the sun just like other planets. But unlike the other planets, it is much smaller than the others. The planet is about half the size of the United States and smaller than the Earth's moon. The planet takes about 248 Earth years to go around the sun. A day on Pluto is six and a half days on Earth.

Pluto is in a part of the solar system called the Kuiper Belt. A region of the solar system that is outside the orbit of Neptune. It holds, what is to be believed comets, asteroids and other small objects and bodies that are mainly made of ice. Like Pluto.


NASA is constantly exploring the solar system and beyond because people love to learn new things. The agency couldn't get a picture using Hubble that wasn't blurry. So, they sent a a telescope the size of a small piano to take pictures of the dwarf planet. New Horizon's is its name. The telescope launched in January of 2006, and got to the planet in Summer 2015 and took some fantastic pictures.

From these pictures, NASA discovered that Pluto is more rock than ice! They also discovered that the moons of the planet spin faster than all other moons. The moon Hydra spins 90 times every time is orbits Pluto.

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