Frigid Outpost in Distant Orbit
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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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