Search results
Results From The WOW.Com Content Network
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.
[196] [201] Many dwarf planet candidates are being considered, pending further data for verification. [202] Pluto (29.7–49.3 AU) is the largest known object in the Kuiper belt. Pluto has a relatively eccentric orbit, inclined 17 degrees to the ecliptic plane.
There are eight planets within the Solar System; planets outside of the solar system are also known as exoplanets. Artist's concept of the potentially habitable exoplanet Kepler-186f. As of 24 January 2025, there are 5,830 confirmed exoplanets in 4,354 planetary systems, with 976 systems having more than one planet. [1]
There are at least 19 natural satellites in the Solar System that are known to be massive enough to be close to hydrostatic equilibrium: seven of Saturn, five of Uranus, four of Jupiter, and one each of Earth, Neptune, and Pluto. Alan Stern calls these satellite planets, although the term major moon is more common.
Many TNOs are often just assumed to have Pluto's density of 2.0 g/cm 3, but it is just as likely that they have a comet-like density of only 0.5 g/cm 3. [ 4 ] For example, if a TNO is incorrectly assumed to have a mass of 3.59 × 10 20 kg based on a radius of 350 km with a density of 2 g/cm 3 but is later discovered to have a radius of only 175 ...
A total of five planets are going retrograde between May and September: Mercury, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune and Pluto. "Retrograde" is a term used to describe when a planet's orbit appears to slow.
Pluto is the largest and most massive member of the Kuiper belt and the largest and the second-most-massive known TNO, surpassed only by Eris in the scattered disc. [ a ] Originally considered a planet, Pluto's status as part of the Kuiper belt caused it to be reclassified as a dwarf planet in 2006.
A Belgian-led team made the discovery using both space- and ground-based telescopes, spotting the planets as they passed in front of the red dwarf star known as TRAPPIST-1.