Infographic: Pluto!

Chris Jones at space-facts.com wrote with word of a new infographic he’s created about Pluto:

I thought I would give you a heads up on a Pluto infographic I put together …

He also includes the following information:

Size: The New Horizons mission has verified that Pluto is the largest of the dwarf planets with a diameter 2,370 kilometers give or take a 20 km margin of error.

Composition: There is still lot to learn from New Horizons about Pluto’s exact internal structure, but we know it is comprised of water ice around a rocky core with a surface layer of nitrogen and methane ices.

Distance from Sun: Pluto’s orbit takes it between 4.4 billion km (29.7 AU) at its closest point and 7.3 billion km (48.9 AU) from the sun with an average distance of 5.9 billion km (39.3 AU). 1 Astronomical Unit (AU) = 149,597,871 km, the average distance of the Earth from the sun.

Moons: Pluto has five moons, in order of size they are Charon with a diameter of 1,208 km, Hydra (45 km), Nix (35 km), Kerberos and Styx.

As a bit of a disclaimer the initial sizes of the smaller moons are based on early information from New Horizons which will likely be refined and in the case of Pluto’s internal structure this is one possible model based on what is currently known.

Sources:

https://pluto.jhuapl.edu/

https://www.nasa.gov/feature/how-big-is-pluto-new-horizons-settles-decades-long-debate

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Internal_Structure_of_Pluto.jpg

Chris welcomes your feedback! Contact him here.