Pluto Statistics

Planetary Symbol: Name in Roman/Greek Mythology: Pluto / Hades
Diameter: 2,390 km (1,485 miles)
[0.187 x Earth's]
Orbital Semimajor Axis:
(average distance from Sun)
39.48 AU
(Earth = 1 AU)
Mass: 12.5 x 1021 kilograms
(0.0021 x Earth's)
Orbital Eccentricity: 0.2488
Density: 1,750 kg/m3
(0.317 x Earth's)
Maximum Distance from Sun: 49.31 AU
( 7.376 billion km or
4.583 billion miles )
Surface Gravity: 0.58 m/s2
(0.06 x Earth's)
Minimum Distance from Sun: 29.66 AU
( 4.437 billion km or
2.757 billion miles )
Surface Temperature: 40 to 50 K
( -233° to -223° C or
-387° to -369° F )
Minimum Distance from Earth: 28.6 AU
( 4.28 billion km or
2.66 billion miles )
Tilt of Axis: 123o Orbital Inclination:
(tilt of orbit plane)
17.16°
Rotation Period about Axis:
(length of Pluto's day)
6.387 days (retrograde) Revolution Period about the Sun:
(length of Pluto's year)
248 years

Satellites: known

Pluto Image Archive

Comparative Planetary Statistics -- in table form

Comparative Orbital Statistics -- in table form

Actual Distance to Earth

Last modified January 25, 2006 by Randy Russell.

You might also be interested in:

Traveling Nitrogen Classroom Activity Kit

Check out our online store - minerals, fossils, books, activities, jewelry, and household items!...more

Eccentricity of an Orbit

You may think that most objects in space that orbit something else move in circles, but that isn't the case. Although some objects follow circular orbits, most orbits are shaped more like "stretched...more

The Moons of Pluto

Pluto has // Call the moon count function defined in the document head print_moon_count('pluto'); moons. One of the moons is very large. The large moon is named Charon. The other two moons are fairly small....more

Pluto

Pluto is a frigid ball of ice and rock that orbits far from the Sun on the frozen fringes of our Solar System. Considered a planet, though a rather odd one, from its discovery in 1930 until 2006, it was...more

Pluto & Charon, a double planet

Of all the planets and moons in the solar system, Pluto and Charon are the two which resemble each other the most closely. They are almost the same size, and they are very close together. They are so...more

Questions to answer about Pluto

Pluto is so far away, and has never been explored. Questions to answer about Pluto include the following: What are the geologic features of the surface. (pictures of the surface) If there are bare spots,...more

A Look at Pluto's Atmosphere

It may seem hard to believe that Pluto could have an atmosphere because it is so cold at 39 AU, where Pluto is found, but it does. Because there are times when Pluto is closer to the sun than is Neptune...more

A Look at Pluto's possible Magnetosphere

No one knows whether or not Pluto has a magnetosphere. Scientists were very surprised to find that Jupiter's icy moon Ganymede had a magnetosphere because it is hard to explain how an icy body can develop...more

Windows to the Universe, a project of the National Earth Science Teachers Association, is sponsored in part is sponsored in part through grants from federal agencies (NASA and NOAA), and partnerships with affiliated organizations, including the American Geophysical Union, the Howard Hughes Medical Institute, the Earth System Information Partnership, the American Meteorological Society, the National Center for Science Education, and TERC. The American Geophysical Union and the American Geosciences Institute are Windows to the Universe Founding Partners. NESTA welcomes new Institutional Affiliates in support of our ongoing programs, as well as collaborations on new projects. Contact NESTA for more information. NASA ESIP NCSE HHMI AGU AGI AMS NOAA