Pluto

Planet X

Pluto, the ninth planet in our solar system, has been shrouded in mystery and speculation long before it's confirmation on February 18th, 1930. Astronomer Clyde Tombaugh announced his discovery of Planet X on March 13th, 1930, the birthday of Percival Lowell the founder of the "Lowell Observatory". Lowell's calculations predicted a ninth planet to be a part of our solar system. Planet X was named after a Greco/Roman God of mythology, that was known as the god of the underworld. Ruling in the bleak cold darkness of an orbit that takes 248 years to complete it's journey, "Pluto" never comes any closer than 2.7 billion miles to the "Sun". The name "Pluto" was given by Venetia Burney, an 11 year old school girl in Oxford, England. ("Out of the mouth of babes") The initials for "Pluto" are PL which are the same as "Percival Lowell", perhaps Percy was sending us a message from another dimension. Pluto is smaller than our own moon and has a mass of approximately 2 tenths of 1 percent of the planet Earth. The gravitational pull of Pluto is 10% that of Earth. Pluto is a very  inhospitable place, with a core of rock and frozen elements along with a surface of frozen methane and nitrogen. The surface temperature of Pluto remains around 380 degrees below zero (Fahrenheit) at all times. That's only 79 degrees above absolute zero (minus 459 Fahrenheit) where the electrons in molecular structure have ceased to move.  Pluto is so cold that water would be like rock and all gasses have condensed out on the surface. Pluto has a Mean diameter of 1,482 miles and rotates at such a slow speed that a day on Pluto is equal to 6.4 days on Earth. Pluto has 1 moon or Satellite named "Charon" which is about half the size of "Pluto" itself. "Charon" was named after another mythological character who ferried the dead across the "River Styx" into the underworld of "Pluto". The crude definition as to the composition of Pluto has left many questions. My vote is for Pluto to stay in the lineup of discovered Planets.  The Nasa mission called The Kuiper Express  was canceled for budgetary reasons however the New Horizons Mission is scheduled to launch in 2006. The new spacecraft will do a flyby of Pluto, Charon and the outlaying "Kuiper Belt".