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My birthday Astronomy Picture of the Day!



PLUTO

My favourite planet ever HAS to be Pluto, I mean, where do you think I got the name from? Discovered February 18, 1930 by Clyde Tombaugh, Pluto's surface is mainly composed of Nitrogen ice. Pluto was originally declared as a minor planet at the International Astronomical Union (IAU) on August 24, 2006. Before this, there were tons of disagreements on what classified as a planet as, if Pluto was declared one, then why shouldn't more of the other large asteroids be classified as such. Ceres is the 2nd major dwarf planet as was originally classified as a planet until a lot of other asteroids were discovered during the mid 1800s. During 2005, Eris was discovered which would have served as the "tenth planet" but, of course, this never ended up happening.

I honestly don't really care about Pluto's status as a planet, and I don't think it negates any impact it has had. Pluto's natural satllites are pretty interesting. Of course there's Charon which is the main and closest satellite, but Pluto actually has 4 other moons, Styx, Nix, Kerberos and Hydra. Pluto doesn't actually orbit within itself, instead a point outside of itself which is pretty interesting. (Heres a showcase of their orbit by New Horizons.)

Pluto hasn't actually made a full orbit around the sun since we have discovered it. The orbital period is around 248 years. Pluto has a distinct orbital inclination and eccentricity (basically meaning at some points it is way closer to the sun.) During 1979 - 1999, it was closer to the sun than Neptune.

One of my favourite songs is I'm Your Moon, by Jonathan Coulton. It's written from the perspective of Charon, as a kind of love letter to Pluto. A lot of it revolves around the 2006 change in planet status, which I don't really care for. But, it is sososososo cute! I don't care! The concept of Pluto's center of mass being outside of itself being rephrased as them orbiting eachother is adorable!



Thank you to all space travellers for their contributions to science!

Rest in peace those who died during their first or subsequent flights or descents.

Soyuz 11
  • Georgy Dobrovolsky
  • Viktor Patsayev
  • Vladislav Volkov

    • Soyuz 1
  • Vladimir Komarov

    • X-15 Flight 191
  • Michael J. Adams

    • Challenger
  • Gregory Jarvis
  • Christa McAuliffe
  • Ronald McNair
  • Ellison Onizuka
  • Judith Resnik
  • Michael J. Smith
  • Francis Scobee

    • Columbia
  • Rick Husband
  • William McCool
  • Michael Anderson
  • David Brown
  • Kalpana Chawla
  • Laurel Clark
  • Ilan Ramon


    • And those who died during training or testing.

  • Valentin Bondarenko
  • Theodore Freeman
  • Elliot See
  • Charles Bassett
  • Virgil Grissom
  • Ed White
  • Roger Chaffee
  • Clifton Williams
  • Robert Lawrence Jr
  • Sergei Vozovikov
  • Michael Alsbury