CodeInStack

What’s Hiding On Pluto? The sun’s gravitational pull stretches out much further than Neptune, all the out to the Kuiper Belt and beyond. To these dark and mysterious satellites, the sun is just a pinprick in the sky. And one of the most mysterious of all is Pluto. Once classified as the ninth planet in the solar system, in 2006 Pluto was downgraded from “planet” to “dwarf planet”. To count as a planet, the International Astronomical Union decided, an object “must have cleared the neighborhood around its orbit”, which Pluto has failed to do due to its relatively small mass. Technically, Pluto is a “trans-Neptunian object” drifting through the Kuiper Belt. It was the discovery of another such object, Eris, that led to the definition of “planet” being changed. Pluto’s surface area is only 3.3% the size of Earth’s - making it about the same size as Russia. On top of being small, Pluto has incredibly low gravity, so little that you’d hardly even notice it – about 6.3% the strength of gravit...