Because Pluto is so dim, you need a telescope to see it. “A backyard telescope could do it under the right conditions,” says ...

For reference, Pluto’s average distance from the Sun is about 40 AU, so 2023 KQ14 is quite distant. At 23.4 billion miles (37 ...

It took over nine years for New Horizons to reach Pluto after blasting off atop an Atlas 5 rocket on Jan. 19, 2006. After ...

Pluto isn’t considered a planet because it lacks enough gravity to clear its orbit, not just because of its distance. Despite receiving less than 1% of Earth’s sunlight, Pluto is still surprisingly ...

Pluto Time is a special moment of interplanetary kinship that happens twice daily, everywhere around the world. It’s that instant just before dawn and after sunset, when the sky on Earth is the ...

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.

Earth's size compared with the updated size of Pluto and its moon Charon. NASA. When I was my 7-year-old daughter's age, I would have argued with you about the size of Pluto.I had a book with ...

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 .

Although telescopes from Earth detected gases on Pluto in 1988, researchers surmised that the tiny planet was losing them too quickly to build up a permanent layer in its skies.

On Earth, we have a pretty good idea of how mountains form. On Pluto, it’s not clear yet. There are no obvious volcanoes, eroding plateaus, or colliding tectonic plates.

On Earth, these snow caps are produced by enhanced precipitation as air rises over the mountains and cools, combined with the colder temperatures at higher elevations. On Pluto, that explanation ...