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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.
He discovered Pluto in 1930, the first object to be discovered in what would later be identified as the Kuiper belt. At the time of discovery, Pluto was considered the ninth planet, but was reclassified as a dwarf planet in 2006. Tombaugh also discovered many asteroids, and called for the serious scientific research of unidentified flying objects.
The timeline of discovery of Solar System planets and their natural satellites charts the progress of the discovery of new bodies over history. Each object is listed in chronological order of its discovery (multiple dates occur when the moments of imaging, observation, and publication differ), identified through its various designations (including temporary and permanent schemes), and the ...
On 20 March 2015, NASA invited the general public to suggest names for surface features that will be discovered on Pluto and Charon. [26] On 15 April 2015, Pluto was imaged showing a possible polar cap. [27] Between April and June 2015, New Horizons began returning images of Pluto that exceeded the quality that the Hubble Space Telescope could ...
Pluto likely acquired large moon Charon in a “kiss and capture” collision billions of years ago. It may have created a subsurface ocean on the icy dwarf planet.
After his death, his Lowell Observatory conducted a search that ultimately led to Clyde Tombaugh's discovery of Pluto in 1930. Pluto was, however, found to be too small to have disrupted the orbits of the outer planets, and its discovery was therefore coincidental. Like Ceres, it was initially considered to be a planet, but after the discovery ...
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Launch date Description Ref(s) Sputnik 1: 4 October 1957 First Earth orbiter [1] [2] Sputnik 2: 3 November 1957 Earth orbiter, first animal in orbit, a dog named Laika [2] [3] [4] Explorer 1: 1 February 1958 Earth orbiter; discovered Van Allen radiation belts [5] Vanguard 1: 17 March 1958 Earth orbiter; oldest spacecraft still in Earth orbit [6 ...