This eBook short read (12,000 words) tells the story of this fascinating little world on the edges of the Solar System: from its discovery in 1930 by American astronomer Clyde Tombaugh to its controversial demotion to ‘dwarf planet’, and the renewed interest of planetary scientists as its secrets were finally unlocked, following the spectacular 2015 flyby of Pluto by NASA’s New Horizons space probe. Among the discoveries were that although Pluto’s atmosphere is a near-vaccum, there are weather systems with significant effects on surface features. Pluto may also experience cryovolcanism – eruptions of cryogenic fluids and slurries rather than silicate magma.
Small though Pluto is, it hosts five known moons. The largest of these, Charon, is significantly larger than the dwarf planet Ceres. The surface to suface distance from Pluto to Charon is just 18,000 km, only slightly more than the flight distance between the United Kingdom and Australia. No other comparably sized Solar System bodies are so close.