Pluto Resources from Britannica

Pictured: Pluto and its large moon Charon. (NASA, ESA, H. Weaver (JHU/APL), A. Stern (SwRI), and the HST Pluto Companion Search Team)

The American astronomer Clyde Tombaugh discovered icy Pluto in 1930 during a deliberate search for a ninth planet. By the turn of the 21st century, however, new revelations about this remote object and kindred bodies in the outer solar system were raising doubts about Pluto’s planetary status. A year ago, in August 2006, astronomers at their major triennial meeting in Prague stirred controversy by approving a definition of planet that excluded Pluto while creating a category called dwarf planet, for which Pluto and two other bodies qualified.

Pluto and its Moons
Because of Pluto's remoteness and small size, the best telescopes on Earth and in Earth orbit have been able to resolve little detail on its surface. Indeed, such basic information as its radius and mass have been difficult to determine; most of what is known about Pluto has been learned since the late 1970s as an outcome of the discovery of Charon:

Pictured: True-colour image of Pluto. (Eliot Young, Southwest Research Institute; NASA's Planetary Astronomy Program)

• Pluto
• Charon: Pluto's major moon
• Hydra and Nix: Pluto's two tiny moons
• Clyde Tombaugh: Pluto's discoverer

What is a Planet?
The idea of what exactly constitutes a planet of the solar system has been debated for centuries. In August 2006, the general assembly of the IAU approved a definition for a solar system planet that excluded Pluto, instead defining it under a new distinct class of objects called dwarf planets:

Pictured: The eight planets of the solar system and Pluto. (NASA/Lunar and Planetary Laboratory)

• Pluto reclassified as dwarf planet
• Planet
• Dwarf Planet
• Ceres
• Eris
• Brown Dwarf

Pluto as a Member of the Solar System
Although it is no longer considered a planet, Pluto is still a member of the Milky Way Galaxy that also includes of the following:

Pictured: Gaspra, an asteroid of the main belt. (NASA/JPL/Caltech)

• Asteroids
• Comets
• Interplanetary Medium
• Kuiper Belt
• Small Body

Pictured: One of the discovery photographs of Pluto's moon Charon. (Official U.S. Navy Photograph)

Before Pluto’s large moon, Charon, was discovered in 1977, astronomers thought the two bodies to be one, and thus Pluto to be significantly larger and more massive than it actually is. Even in the discovery photos, Charon appears only as a bump on the side of Pluto. The nearness of the two objects, their great distance from Earth, and the distorting effects of Earth’s atmosphere made it extremely difficult to distinguish Charon from Pluto, even in the best telescopes of the time.

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Asteroids: Is Planetary Armageddon Looming?
by Gregory McNamee
About 4.6 billion years ago, an asteroid bigger than Ceres, perhaps as large as Mars, collided with Earth and sent a vast cloud of sandy fragments and great chunks of rock into the atmosphere. These fragments eventually coalesced into the Moon. Could the heavens have another mega-collision in store for Earth? Could be... (read more)

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