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Monday, October 6, 2014

Pluto was discovered in 1930 by astronomer Clyde Tombaugh--who worked in the Lowell Observatory in Flagstaff, Arizona. Tombaugh was only 24 when he discovered it.

For 76 years, Pluto was considered a planet. However, when astronomers discovered that it was just one of many large objects within the Kuiper belt, Pluto was renamed a 'dwarf planet' in 2006.



Today's Random Fact:

Pluto takes the longest time of the eight planets (248 Earth years) to orbit around the sun. Because it's the closest to the sun, Mercury has the fastest orbit, at 88 Earth days. Earth takes 365 days to orbit the sun.

It takes Pluto 6 days, 9 hours, and 17 minutes to spin once, making it the planet with the second-slowest rotation in the solar system. Venus has the slowest rotation, taking 243 days to spin just once. Jupiter is the fastest-spinning planet, rotating on average once in just less than 10 hours.

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Bonus Fact:

Pluto spins in the opposite direction as Earth, which means the sun rises in the west and sets in the east. Only Venus, Uranus, and Pluto have a retrograde rotation.

Because Pluto's moon Charon is almost the size of the planet itself, astronomers sometimes refer to the two as a double planet

Since Pluto and Charon orbit each other, Charon appears to stand still in Pluto's sky. Additionally, the same sides of Pluto and Charon always face each other.