Pluto

Pluto
A picture of Pluto. The dwarf planet Pluto, was once counted as a Planet, but in 2006, the International Astronomical Union declared it as a dwarf planet, because of its extremely low mass. Even now Pluto is debated on whether or not it should be considered as a planet. Pluto it is the second most massive dwarf planet in the solar system as we know, after Eris. It is ninth from the sun and like Uranus, the plane of Plutos equator is at almost right angles to the plane of its orbit. Also like Uranus, its tilt is so out of proportion of its body, that the pole nearly points directly towards the Sun. Pluto is primarily made up of rock and ice, which is why it is said to be a dead planet. The size of Pluto is approximately a fifth of the mass of the Earth's Moon and a third its volume. Pluto orbits the Sun every two and a half Earthly years. Although little is known about Pluto's atmosphere, they have evidence to believe that it consists of primarily of nitrogen with some carbon monoxide and methane. This makes it very weak. Pluto's atmospheric gasses, for most of the year, are frozen into ice. The interior of Pluto is made up of (first layer) Ice mantle, (second layer) second ice mantle, and the core. It is considered one of the most remote planets in the solar system.When closest to the Sun, some of the atmosphere escapes to space, perhaps even interacting with Charon.

Charon, Pluto's moon. Charon is is Pluto's moon. It was discovered in 1978, but because of it being the same size as Pluto, their were questions on whether if it was Pluto's moon, or if it was a double planet. Charon always keeps at least one face towards Pluto. It is sometimes treated as a binary planet because the barycentre of its body does not lie within its body. It orbits Pluto every 6.4 Earth days. Pluto also has two smaller moons, which are called Nix and Hydra, which were discovered in 2005. Once Pluto was found, it was given the number '134340'. At some points in the year, Pluto orbits Neptune and at certain times even comes closer to the sun than Neptune, getting 5,900 million km away from the Sun. Pluto is now the largest member of a district population known as Kuiper belt.

This is Clyde W.Tombaugh. The discoverer of Pluto. Pluto was discovered by Clyde W.Tombaugh in 1930, February 18th. He was born on the 4th of February, 1906 and attended high school in Streator, Illinois. After him and his family moved to a farm in Western Kansas they were hit with a big hail storm destroying there crop. Soon after he decided to attend college. He was very interested in geometry and trigonometry, and continued to teach himself in college. In 1926, at the age of 20, he built his first telescope. Not satisfied with the results, he made two more taking him two years, discovering more and more. Using his own creations, he began to make drawings of Mars and Jupiter, and sent them to the Lowell Observatory in Flagstaff, Arizona. They were so impressed with his work that the astronomers invited him to work there. He stayed there for 14 years. Tombaugh made history as a young astronomer when he discovered Pluto in 1930. In 1932 he entered the University of Kansas where he earned his Bachelor of Science degree in 1936. In the summer he continued to work at the observatory and after graduation he returned full time. In 1938 he received his masters degree from the University of Kansas. During this time he worked at the Lowell Observatory he discovered over hundreds of new variable stars, hundreds of new asteroids and 2 comets. Clyde W.Tombaugh died on the 17th of January, 1997.

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 * [|google images]
 * Science ALive. Book one.
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