Frigid Outpost in Distant Orbit
Pluto is the most remote and the smallest planet in the solar system. It was discovered Feb. 18, 1930, by Clyde Tombaugh, the only American to have uncovered a planet.
Too faint to be seen with the naked eye, Pluto lies more than 3 billion miles from the sun. It takes six hours for the sun’s light to reach Pluto (but only eight minutes for sunlight to reach Earth).
The length of Pluto’s year--or time it takes to revolve around the sun--is 248.5 Earth years.
Only 1,440 miles in diameter, Pluto has 1/455th the mass of Earth.
On Pluto, people would weigh 1/15th what they weigh on Earth (on the moon, one-sixth).
The surface temperature is approximately 400 degrees below zero.
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