To Pluto and beyondMission Badge BelowConor Finch, Travis Tricker, Sam Vanemrick.

Pluto Brochure

(The dwarf planet!!)

Introduction Today I'm going to take you on a adventure! To the depths of

our solar system……… to the dwarf planet Pluto. Which is the most recent discovered planet in our solar system.

Orbit Pluto is the farthest away from the sun which means it will

take the longest to orbit the sun. Pluto takes 248 years to completely orbit the sun once. In Pluto's orbit around the sun it can become 30 Au away from it. Au means the distance between the sun and the earth. Its farthest point is 39 Au. Pluto has a very inclined orbit. Its orbit is 17 degrees which means it orbits above the other planets and sometimes below them. When the planet orbits above the other planets its is called the plane of the ecliptic.

Eccentricity of Pluto An Eccentricity is a term used to describe how round

or how stretched out an ellipse is. Mathematicians and astronomers use the term ellipse to describe the orbit routes of planets. Mathematicians and astronomers have discovered that planets do not orbit on a perfect circle. They found out they orbit on stretched out circles or ovals.

Pluto's Eccentricity of Pluto is 0.25 This picture below shows how Pluto orbits on an oval

shaped ellipse“This animation shows elliptical orbits with different eccentricities. It also shows how the Sun is at the focus of an ellipse, and some of the math behind elliptical orbits.” http://www.windows2universe.org

Rotation of Pluto Every planet in our solar system revolves around the sun in

an eastward direction. Instead of Pluto rotating on its axis it rotates the opposite

way. Same as Venus and Uranus. Pluto has a tilt of about 120 degrees. With a tilt of 120 degrees means that one side of the planet

will always be dark and one side will always be Light. Pluto's rotation period is equaled to 6.39 earth days.

Pluto Fun Facts1. “Pluto is only about half the width of the United States”

2. “If you lived on Pluto, you'd have to live 248 Earth years to celebrate your first birthday in Pluto years.”

3. ‘If you weigh 100 pounds on Earth, you would weigh only 7 pounds on Pluto!”

4. “Almost all the planets travel around the Sun in nearly perfect circles. But Pluto does not. It takes an oval-shaped path with the Sun nowhere near its center.”

5. “Pluto is the largest of the "ice dwarfs" in our solar system.”

6. Pluto is not a planet anymore because it isnt the biggest object in the Kuiper Belt.

http://spaceplace.nasa.gov

Surface data(gravity, temperature, weather, composition of the planet)

Pluto is probably our solar systems coldest planet because it is the farthest away from the sun.

Pluto’s atmosphere is made up of about 90% Nitrogen and 10% of other molecules like

methane. The temperature range from -396°F to -378°F (-238°C to -228°C) The average temperature is -393°F (-236°C) Scientists and astronomers do not know what Pluto is composed of. They think it is made of

70% and about 30% water. They determine this by density calculations. Density of Pluto: 2,000kg/m3 The Three layers of Pluto are Frozen Nitrogen , Water ice, Rock Pluto weights  1.31×1022 kg Pluto is 0.6 the size of earth and its diameter is 2,306 km, or roughly 66% that of the Moon. Pluto gravity is %7 of earths gravity. So if you weighted 100 pounds on earth you would

weight 7 pounds on Pluto.

Human ExplorationA mission to Pluto was launched in January, 19 of 2006. This mission is called new horizons. This is a picture from the mission new horizon it was one of the first images. This picture below was taken from 4.2 billion miles way.

The new horizon mission will take pictures of the surface of Pluto and Charon.

“New Horizons will use a remote sensing package that includes imaging instruments and a radio science investigation tool, as well as spectroscopic and other experiments, to characterise the global geology and morphology of Pluto and its moon Charon”

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pluto

The Discovery of Pluto In 1840 Urbain Le Verrier predicted were the undiscovered planet Neptune after

looking at the disturbance in motion of Uranus’s orbit. They figured out that not only Neptune was affecting the orbit of Uranus.

A Wealthy Bostonian named Percival Lowell who had created the “Lowell Observatory in Flagstaff, Arizona in 1894” Started to fund an expensive project to maybe discover a ninth planet.

Before Pluto was discovered it was named planet X. They conducted the research until 1916 when Percival Lowell died. They did not

know on March,19,1915 they had seen faint images of Pluto. There are 16 pre discovery of Pluto and the oldest one dates back to August,

20,1909.

Sighting of Pluto on January 23 and 29 of 1930

Pluto's distance from the sun Pluto is the farthest planet away from the

sun. Closest Distance: 4.44 billion KM Farthest Distance: 7.38 billion KM Regular Distance: 5.9 billion KM

This shows the order of the planets and shows how Pluto is the farthest away.

Moons and asteroid belt. Pluto has four moons. Charon was discovered in 1978 on June

22. Nix and hydra were found in 2005. But the latest moon of Pluto found Is called S/2011 P 1 it was found on June 28, 2011 and It was verified as a moon on July,20,2011.

Biggest moon to smallest moon 1:Charon 2: Hydra 3: Nix 4: S/2011 P1 Charon has half the diameter as Pluto and is one eighth the

mass. Charon and Pluto are tidal locked which means one face of

Pluto and one face of Charon will always be facing each other. The Kuiper bell is home to Pluto and Haumea, and Makemake. Pluto is the biggest member of The Kuiper belt. The Kuiper belt was found in 1992.

Sources http://www.skepticalscience.com http://cseligman.com http://spaceplace.nasa.gov http://www.windows2universe.org http://www.universetoday.com http://en.wikipedia.org