Pluto Facts

Light takes 6 hours to travel from Pluto to Earth.

Pluto is the coldest, smallest, and outermost planet in the solar system.

To an observer standing on Pluto, the Sun would appear no brighter than Venus appears in our evening sky.

Pluto and its moon, Charon, are called double planets because Charon is comparatively large. The planet Pluto takes 248 Earth years to orbit the Sun.

Pluto is smaller than Earth's Moon.

Pluto's composition is unknown, but its density indicates that it is probably a mixture of 70% rock and 30% ice.

Pluto is named after the Roman and Greek god of the underworld

Pluto is 2.67 billion miles away from Earth.

The surface temperature on Pluto varies between about -235 and -210 C

Pluto is too faint to be seen with the naked eye. When viewed through a telescope, it looks like a star.

During each revolution around the sun, Pluto passes inside

Neptune's orbit for 20 years, making Neptune the outermost planet.

Pluto is the only planet that has not yet been studied closely by a space probe.

Pluto's atmosphere is composed primarily of nitrogen and methane gas.

Pluto is the smallest planet.

Some astronomers believe Pluto wasn't one of the original planets but a moon of Neptune that broke loose.

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