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Pluto (minor-planet designation: 134340 Pluto) is a dwarf planet in the Kuiper belt, a ring of bodies beyond the orbit of Neptune. It is the ninth-largest and tenth-most-massive known object to directly orbit the Sun. It is the largest known trans-Neptunian object by volume, by a small margin, but is less massive than Eris.
Pluto is a dwarf planet located in a distant region of our solar system beyond Neptune known as the Kuiper Belt. Pluto was long considered our ninth planet, but the International Astronomical Union reclassified Pluto as a dwarf planet in 2006.
Jul 16, 2024 · Pluto, large, distant member of the solar system that formerly was regarded as the outermost and smallest planet. In 2006 a group of experts in the scientific community voted to give Pluto the new classification of dwarf planet. Learn more about Pluto in this article.
Why is Pluto no longer a planet? Pluto was reclassified as a dwarf planet in 2006 by the International Astronomical Union because other objects might cross its orbit.
Jul 9, 2024 · Pluto is a dwarf planet that lies in the Kuiper [KI-per] Belt. It's an area full of icy bodies and other dwarf planets at the edge of our solar system. Pluto is known as the "King of the Kuiper Belt" – and it's the largest object in the region, even though another object similar in size, called Eris, has a slightly higher mass.
Dwarf planet Pluto is a member of a group of objects that orbit in a disc-like zone beyond the orbit of Neptune called the Kuiper Belt. This distant realm is populated with thousands of miniature icy worlds, which formed early in the history of our solar system about 4.5 billion years ago.
Discovered in 1930, Pluto is the second closest dwarf planet to the Sun and was at one point classified as the ninth planet. Pluto is the largest dwarf planet but only the second most massive, with Eris being the most massive.
Pluto: Exploration. NASA's New Horizons was the first and, so far, the only mission to Pluto. It was also the first mission to explore the solar system's recently discovered "third zone," the region beyond the giant planets called the Kuiper Belt. All NASA Science Missions.
Jul 6, 2015 · These are the most recent high-resolution views of Pluto sent by NASA’s New Horizons spacecraft, including one showing the four mysterious dark spots on Pluto that have captured the imagination of the world.
Jul 14, 2015 · NASA’s New Horizons spacecraft is at Pluto. After a decade-long journey through our solar system, New Horizons made its closest approach to Pluto Tuesday, about 7,750 miles above the surface — roughly the same distance from New York to Mumbai, India – making it the first-ever space mission to explore a world so far from Earth.
