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Pluto's Status
Pluto’s classification as a planet has had a history of changes. Since 2006, per the
International Astronomical Union’s planetary criteria, Pluto isn’t considered a planet
because it hasn’t cleared the neighborhood around its orbit of other objects.
However, it does meet IAU’s criteria for what constitutes a dwarf planet.

The Latest
July 14, 2017: On July 14, 2015, NASA’s New Horizons spacecraft
made its historic flight through the Pluto system – providing the first
close-up images of Pluto and its moons and collecting other data that
has transformed our understanding of these mysterious worlds on the
solar system’s outer frontier.

Perspective view of Pluto's highest

mountains, Tenzing Montes. Credit: NASA/Johns Hopkins University Applied
Physics Laboratory/Southwest Research Institute/ Lunar and Planetary Institute/Paul
Schenk

Scientists are still analyzing and uncovering data that New Horizons
recorded and sent home after the encounter. On the two-year
anniversary of the flyby, the team unveiled a set of detailed, high-quality
global maps of Pluto and its largest moon, Charon.
 New Horizons project science gallery for Pluto
 New Horizons project science gallery for Charon

Pluto—which is smaller than Earth’s Moon—has a heart-shaped glacier

that’s the size of Texas and Oklahoma. This fascinating world has blue
skies, spinning moons, mountains as high as the Rockies, and it snows
—but the snow is red.

“The complexity of the Pluto system — from its geology to its satellite
system to its atmosphere— has been beyond our wildest imagination,”
said Alan Stern, New Horizons principal investigator from the Southwest
Research Institute in Boulder, Colorado. “Everywhere we turn are new
mysteries."

Go farther. Explore Pluto In Depth ›

This is the highest-resolution color departure shot of Pluto's receding crescent from NASA's New
Horizons spacecraft, taken when the spacecraft was 120,000 miles (200,000 kilometers) away from Pluto.
Image credit: NASA/Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory/Southwest Research Institute

10 Need-to-Know Things About Pluto

1
SMALL WORLD
Pluto is about 1,400 miles (2,380 km) wide. That's about half the width of the United
States, or 2/3 the width of Earth's moon.

2
 DEEP SPACE
Pluto orbits the Sun about 3.6 billion miles (5.8 billion km) away on average, about
40 times as far as Earth, in a region called the Kuiper Belt.

3
SLOW JOURNEY
A year on Pluto is 248 Earth years. A day on Pluto lasts 153 hours, or about 6 Earth
days.

NATURAL COLOR
4
SMALL IN SIZE, BUT NOT IN IMPORTANCE
Pluto is officially classified as a dwarf planet.

5
HAZY DAYS
Pluto has a thin atmosphere of nitrogen, methane and carbon monoxide. The
atmosphere has a blue tint and distinct layers of haze.

6
MOON DANCE
Pluto has 5 moons. The largest, Charon, is so big that Pluto and Charon orbit each
other like a double planet.

7
RINGLESS
Pluto has no ring system.

8
SOLE ENCOUNTER
The only spacecraft to visit Pluto is NASA’s New Horizons, which passed close by in
July 2015.

9
HARSH HABITAT
Pluto’s surface is far too cold, -378 to -396 degrees F (-228 to -238 C), to sustain life
as we know it.

10
FROM THE MOUTHS OF BABES
Venetia Burney, just 11 years old at the time, suggested the name Pluto in 1930.

MAJESTIC MOUNTAINS AND FROZEN PLAINS

How Pluto Got its Name

Pluto is the only world (so far) named by an 11-year-old girl. In 1930,
Venetia Burney of Oxford, England, suggested to her grandfather that
the new discovery be named for the Roman god of the underworld. He
forwarded the name to the Lowell Observatory and it was selected.

Picture of Venetia Burney

Pluto's moons are named for other mythological figures associated with
the underworld. Charon is named for the river Styx boatman who ferries
souls in the underworld (as well as honoring Sharon, the wife of
discoverer James Christy); Nix is named for the mother of Charon, who
is also the goddess of darkness and night; Hydra is named for the nine-
headed serpent that guards the underworld; Kerberos is named after the
three-headed dog of Greek mythology (and called Fluffy in the Harry
Potter novels); and Styx is named for the mythological river that
separates the world of the living from the realm of the dead.

Pluto's place in mythology can get a little muddled, so we asked Dr.

Elizabeth Vandiver, chair of the Department of Classics in Whitman
College in Walla Walla, Washington, to clarify the origins of the name:
"Pluto is the name of the Roman god of the Underworld, equivalent to
the Greek Hades. However, the Greek name "Plouton" (from which the
Romans derived their name "Pluto") was also occasionally used as an
alternative name for Hades. But Pluto is definitely the Roman spelling."
Planetary Features

Interesting Facts About Pluto

 Pluto is only about 1,400 miles wide. At that small size, Pluto is only about
half the width of the United States.
 Pluto is about 3.6 billion miles away from the Sun and has five moons.
 Pluto’s atmosphere is thin and composed mostly of nitrogen, methane and
carbon monoxide.
 Pluto and its largest moon, Charon, are so similar in size that they orbit each
other like a double planet system.
 On average, Pluto’s temperature is -387°F (-232°C), making it too cold to
sustain life, but it does have a heart-shaped glacier bigger than Texas.

Pop Culture
When Pluto was reclassified in 2006 from a planet to a dwarf planet,
there was widespread outrage on behalf of the demoted planet. As the
textbooks were updated, the internet spawned memes with Pluto going
through a range of emotions, from anger to loneliness. But since the
release of New Horizons images showing a very prominent heart-shaped
feature on the surface, the sad Pluto meme has given way to a very
content, loving Pluto that would like to once again be visited by a
spacecraft.

The Disney cartoon character Pluto, Mickey's faithful dog, made his
debut in 1930, the same year Tombaugh discovered the dwarf planet.
There is speculation that Walt Disney named the animated dog after the
recently discovered planet to capitalize on its popularity, but other
accounts are less certain of a direct link. But either way, the joke
connecting the two, as told in the 1987 Mel Brooks
film Spaceballs remains:

We were lost. None of us knew where we were. Then Harry starts

feeling around on all the trees, and he says, "I got it! We're on Pluto." I
say, "Harry, how can ya tell?" And he says, "From the bark, you
dummies. From the bark!"

Kid-Friendly Pluto
Pluto is a dwarf planet that lies in the Kuiper Belt, an area full of icy bodies and other
dwarf planets out past Neptune. Pluto is very small, only about half the width of the
United States and its biggest moon Charon is about half the size of Pluto.
Almost all the planets travel around the Sun in nearly perfect circles. But not Pluto. It
takes an oval-shaped path with the Sun nowhere near its center. What's more, its
path is quite tilted compared to the planets.

Visit NASA Space Place for more kid-friendly facts.