Pluto, once considered the ninth planet in our solar system, was reclassified as a dwarf planet in 2006 by the International Astronomical Union (IAU). Discovered in 1930 by astronomer Clyde Tombaugh, Pluto is located in the Kuiper Belt, a region of icy bodies and remnants from the solar system's early formation, far beyond Neptune. Pluto's orbit is highly elliptical, taking it as far as 4.6 billion miles from the Sun at its furthest point. Its orbit also differs from the planets because it is tilted and crosses the path of Neptune.
Pluto is relatively small compared to other planets—it's about 1,473 miles (2,377 kilometers) in diameter, which is roughly two-thirds the size of Earth's Moon. Despite its size, Pluto has five known moons, the largest of which is Charon, nearly half the size of Pluto itself. This large moon creates a unique system where Pluto and Charon are sometimes considered a "double dwarf planet" system, as they orbit a common center of mass that lies between the two bodies, rather than within Pluto itself.
Pluto’s surface is a mixture of frozen nitrogen, methane, and carbon monoxide, with some areas displaying large icy mountains and vast plains. One of its most famous features is the heart-shaped Tombaugh Regio, named in honor of its discoverer. This region is made of nitrogen ice and is relatively smooth, indicating recent geological activity. Pluto's thin atmosphere is composed primarily of nitrogen, with traces of methane and carbon monoxide, and it expands when the dwarf planet comes closer to the Sun during its orbit, but freezes and collapses as it moves farther away.
The New Horizons spacecraft gave us our first close-up look at Pluto in 2015, revolutionizing our understanding of this distant world. Before that, Pluto had been little more than a fuzzy dot in telescopes. New Horizons revealed complex geology and atmospheric dynamics, including possible cryovolcanoes (ice volcanoes) and evidence that Pluto might have an internal ocean beneath its icy crust. These findings show that Pluto is far more active and interesting than previously thought, despite its small size and distant location.
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