How long does it take Pluto to orbit the sun? Learn more about how this planet makes one lap around our Solar System.

If Earth were in Pluto’s position, Soter said it would still be a planet — but only marginally — based on its neighborhood-clearing abilities.

Since Pluto is so far from Earth, little was known about the dwarf planet's size or surface conditions until 2015, when NASA's New Horizons space probe made a close flyby of Pluto.

Once the existence of Pluto's atmosphere was confirmed, scientists began to investigate how the atmosphere and the surface temperature change during Pluto's 248-Earth-year journey around the sun.

As the spacecraft passes behind Pluto, with respect to Earth it will precisely measure how incoming radio signals are affected by the thin Pluto atmosphere. Low Gain Antenna 2 .

While Earth's orbit is almost circular, Pluto's is elongated with an eccentricity of 0.25. By comparison, Mercury's is 0.205, Eris' is 0.44, Makemake's is 0.16 and Haumea's is 0.20.

Pluto is, on average, 40 times farther from the sun than Earth is. That means that from Pluto the sun appears 40 x 40 = 1,600 times fainter (or, to use better math grammar, one sixteen-hundredth ...

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It takes Pluto slightly over 248 Earth years to orbit the sun, which means that on March 23, 2178, one Plutonian year will ...

Pluto is 3.6 billion miles from the sun – 40 times the distance from Earth to the sun – and a single year takes 248 Earth years. This makes Pluto a cold place covered with ice, and its surface ...

It takes Pluto slightly over 248 Earth years to orbit the sun, which means that on March 23, 2178, one Plutonian year will have elapsed since the dwarf planet was first spotted, on Feb. 18, 1930.