The curious case of the PLUTO

Pluto was discovered back in 1930 when Scientist Clyde Tombaugh saw a meteorite type celestial object floating in space but had a very distinct feature. Upon further observation and subsequent investigation Clyde and supportive Scientist came to the conclusion that it is the 9th and the farthest planet of our solar system. Since the day of its discovery, Pluto hasn't completed one single orbit trajectory since its discovery as it takes it almost 2.5 centuries, i.e. 248 Earth year to be precise (Quite unreal!!!..

Pluto is situated at Kuiper belt, which is an icy region consists of asteroids, dwarf planets and many celestial debris.. This region lies beyond the orbit of Neptune. Pluto orbits around the Sun in a way so that it makes appreciable amount of angle with Neptune.. Though it never intersect Neptune's​ trajectory and never ever collide.. The Pluto initially designated as the 9th planet of our Solar system which acquires all the criteria needed to be designated as a planet.
The criteria for being a planet is:
1. it has to be massive enough so as to get rounded by its own gravity.
2. it does not has to be massive enough to get its own nuclear fusion started.
3. It should orbit the sun
4. It has cleared neighborhood

When Pluto was discovered it seems to be fulfilling all the criteria. Until in 1992, observers found many similar objects orbiting in the same area. This further led to the discovery of Kuiper belt. The scientist then came to the notion that it may be fulfilling the criteria for planet that is like, it moves in an orbit around the sun and also has the sufficient mass to attain spherical shape but the it hasn't cleared his neighborhood and thus termed as dwarf planet. 

The mass of the Pluto is almost 0.22% of Earth mass i.e. 1.303810^22 kg approx. The diameter is 2380 km approx. The angle of inclination of pole is 120 degree and that's why one fourth part is always under the sun light and three fourth always under the darkness. This causes significant temperature difference ranging from -240 deg Celsius to -218 deg Celsius.

Due to immense coldness on Pluto, and abundance of Nitrogen in its atmosphere, most of the surface is covered with solid nitrogen.. Its atmosphere extends up to 150 km above the surface. Apart from Nitrogen, methane is also a composition and as it is a greenhouse gas, temperature variation in the atmosphere is easily noticeable. 


Recently, NASA launches a space probe, called New horizons which is designed to do a flyby of Pluto. The New horizon launched into space on January 19, 2016 from cape canaveral Air force station. The initial velocity at which it launched was 16.26 kilometers per second. It reached closest to Jupiter on February 28, 2007 that is about 2.3 million kilometers away from Jupiter. Jupiter's gravity assist New horizon to accelerate its speed a bit.

Post Jupiter encounter, Most of the time new horizon was kept in hibernation for longing the on-board systems. It came back online on December 6, 2014 for Pluto encounter and also to check all the systems on-board still working full capacity or not.

January 15, 2015, the day New horizon approached its phase to Pluto and on july 14, 2016, it moves closest to The Pluto and around 6.25 GB of data recorded.

Pluto has five moons according the findings till date. Charon, Styx, Nix, Kerberos and Hydra are those five. Charon the largest of all is almost more than half the size of Pluto. The most important finding of the New horizon is that the the reddish brown color at North pole of the Charon is composed of Tholins and macro-molecules which at some level indicates life.

Recently, NASA issued a report in which they have theorized that maybe under the heavy sheets of ice, that can extends up to 70 kms, water in its liquid state could be there as New horizon captures a region where the mountains are made up of water ice.

Even if Pluto has water, it is still an inhabitable zone because of its atmosphere. But so many mysteries still left unsolved like could charon support life.. why the orbit of rotation of the Pluto is inclined to an angle and many more.. 

Science will keep exploring it and you guys just keep on reading  new stuffs here.. thank you all..!!!

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