Pluto, the Dwarf Planet

While Pluto was recently reclassified as a dwarf planet in 2006, there are still lots of interesting facts about this tiny floating rock.

Discovered on February 18, 1930, by Clyde Tombaugh at the Lowell Observation, Pluto was named after the Roman God of the Underground.

With five known moons and a surface temperate of -380 degrees Fahrenheit, Pluto is surprisingly complex.

Though Pluto was discovered almost 100 years ago, it has yet to turn “one.” It takes Pluto 248 years to rotate the sun once, meaning Pluto will complete its first orbit on March 23, 2178, 157 years from now.

One interesting comparison is that if Russia were to be turned into its own planet, it would be larger than Pluto. This is because Russia has a surface area of over 6.6 million square miles, while Pluto only has a surface area of 6.4 million square miles.