Dwarf Planet Facts by Caden Powell

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Slide Notes

Dwarf Planet Facts

Published on Nov 19, 2015

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PRESENTATION OUTLINE

DWARF PLANET:

PLUTO

Photo by Meredith Garstin

Pluto
Discovered in 1930, Pluto is the second closest dwarf planet to the Sun and was at one point classified as the ninth planet. Pluto is also the second most massive dwarf planet with Eris being the most massive.

Photo by ShellyS

Pluto Dwarf Planet Profile:
Mass: 13,050,000,000,000 billion kg (0.00218 x Earth)
Diameter: 2,368 km (+- 20km)
Known Moons: 5
Notable Moons: Charon, Nix, Hydra, Kerberos and Styx more info
Orbit Distance: 5,874,000,000 km (39.26 AU)
Orbit Period: 246.04 Earth years
Surface Temperature: -229°C
Discovery Date: 18th February 1930
Discovered By: Clyde W. Tombaugh

Photo by biologycorner

Size Of Pluto Compared To The Earth

Facts About Pluto
Pluto is named after the Greek god of the underworld:
This is a later name for the more well known Hades and was proposed by Venetia Burney an eleven year old schoolgirl from Oxford, England.

Pluto was reclassified from a planet to a dwarf planet in 2006:
This is when the IAU formalised the definition of a planet as “A planet is a celestial body that (a) is in orbit around the Sun, (b) has sufficient mass for its self-gravity to overcome rigid body forces so that it assumes a hydrostatic equilibrium (nearly round) shape, and (c) has cleared the neighbourhood around its orbit.”

Photo by Wonderlane

Pluto was discovered on February 18th, 1930 by the Lowell Observatory:
For the 76 years between Pluto being discovered and the time it was reclassified as a dwarf planet it completed under a third of its orbit around the Sun.

Pluto has five known moons:
They are Charon (discovered in 1978,), Hydra and Nix (both discovered in 2005), Kerberos originally P4 (discovered 2011) and Styx originally P5 (discovered 2012) official designations S/2011 (134340) 1 and S/2012 (134340) 1.

Photo by chrisinplymouth

Pluto may be the largest dwarf planet:
Or it could be Eris. Currently the most accurate measurements give Eris an average diameter of 2,326km with a margin of error of 12km, while Pluto’s diameter is 2,368km with a 20km margin of error, however due to Pluto’s atmosphere it is difficult to say for certain.

Pluto is one third water:
This is in the form of water ice which is more than 3 times as much water as in all the Earth’s oceans, the remaining two thirds are rock.
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Pluto is smaller than a number of moons:
These are Ganymede, Titan, Callisto, Io, Europa, Triton, and the Earth’s moon. Pluto has 66% of the diameter of the Earth’s moon and 18% of its mass.

Pluto has a eccentric and inclined orbit:
This takes it between 4.4 and 7.4 billion km from the Sun meaning Pluto is periodically closer to the Sun than Neptune.

DWARF PLANET:

CERES

Ceres is the closest dwarf planet to the Sun and is located in the asteroid belt making it the only dwarf planet in the inner solar system. Ceres is the smallest of the bodies current classified as dwarf planets.

Ceres Dwarf Planet Profile
Mass: 943,000,000,000 billion kg (0.00015 x Earth)
Diameter: 950 km
Known Moons: none
Notable Moons: none
Orbit Distance: 413,700,000 km (2.77 AU)
Orbit Period: 4.60 years
Surface Temperature: -105°C
Discovery Date: 1st January 1801
Discovered By: Giuseppe Piazzi

Facts About The Dwarf Planet Ceres
Ceres was the first object considered to be an asteroid:
Italian astronomer Giuseppe Piazzi discovered and named Ceres in early 1801.

The first visit to Ceres is due in 2015:
NASA’s Dawn spacecraft has been making its way to Ceres from the asteroid Vesta since September 2012. There is high interest in this mission since Ceres will be the first Dwarf Planet visited by a spacecraft and is one possible destination for human colonisation given its abundance of ice, water, and minerals.

Ceres has a mysterious white spot:
This can be seen in both the old Hubble images and the more recent photos taken by the Dawn spacecraft on its approach.

Every second Ceres loses 6kg of it’s mass in steam:
Plumes of water vapour shooting up from Ceres’ surface were observed by the Herschel Space Telescope this was the first definitive observation of water vapour in the asteroid belt. It’s thought this is caused when portions of Ceres’ icy surface warm.

Ceres accounts for one third of the mass in the asteroid belt:
Despite this it is still the smallest and least massive of the dwarf planets.

For roughly the first 50 years after its discovery Ceres was frequently referred to as a planet:
By the end of 1851 14 other similar objects had been discovered and it did not take long before these instead became known as “minor planets”. Ceres was eventually reclassified as a Dwarf Planet alongside Pluto in 2006.

Caden Powell