After mathematics suggested there was a ninth planet, scientists set out to discover it. In 1930, Clyde Tombaugh identified Pluto after carefully searching the sky. Pluto is very small and dim, orbiting far from the sun at 39 AU over 248 years, so it took years for its motion to identify it as the ninth planet. It has one moon, Charon, and some debate whether Pluto is truly a planet or escaped satellite of Neptune.
After mathematics suggested there was a ninth planet, scientists set out to discover it. In 1930, Clyde Tombaugh identified Pluto after carefully searching the sky. Pluto is very small and dim, orbiting far from the sun at 39 AU over 248 years, so it took years for its motion to identify it as the ninth planet. It has one moon, Charon, and some debate whether Pluto is truly a planet or escaped satellite of Neptune.
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After mathematics suggested there was a ninth planet, scientists set out to discover it. In 1930, Clyde Tombaugh identified Pluto after carefully searching the sky. Pluto is very small and dim, orbiting far from the sun at 39 AU over 248 years, so it took years for its motion to identify it as the ninth planet. It has one moon, Charon, and some debate whether Pluto is truly a planet or escaped satellite of Neptune.
Copyright:
Attribution Non-Commercial (BY-NC)
Available Formats
Download as DOC, PDF, TXT or read online from Scribd
mathematics suggested that there still might be a ninth planet. Scientists set out to discover it, and it was finally identified in 1930 by Clyde Tombaugh after a careful search of the sky.
Because Pluto is so small, it is also very dim in the
sky. At 39 Astronomical Units from the sun, and with 248 years to complete its orbit around the sun, Pluto also moves very slowly. So it was many years before the 9th planet could be identified by its motion. This is an image of Pluto with its moon Charon. Click on image for full size version (36K GIF) Pluto is named after the Roman god of the Image courtesy of NASA underworld. It has one moon named Charon. Some people say that Pluto isn't a planet at all. They say it's really a satellite that escaped Neptune's gravitational pull.