Quick Questions and Answers About Pluto
Q. How many kilometers from the sun is Pluto?
A. Pluto is more than 5.9 billion kilometers away from the sun.
Q. How many miles from the sun is Pluto?
A. Pluto is more than 3.7 billion miles from the sun.
Q. How does Pluto orbit, or travel around, the sun?
A. Most planets orbit the sun in a near-circle. The sun is in the center of the circle. But Pluto does not orbit in a circle. The orbit of Pluto is shaped like an oval. And the sun is not in the center. Pluto's orbit is also tilted.
Q. How big is Pluto?
A drawing of the solar system shows Pluto's tilted orbit. Pluto's orbital path angles 17 degrees above the line, or plane, where the eight planets orbit.
Credits: NASA
A. Pluto is only 2,300 kilometers wide. That means it is 1,400 miles wide.
Q. How cold is Pluto in degrees Celsius?
A. Pluto is about 230 degrees below zero Celsius.
Q. How cold is Pluto in degrees Fahrenheit?
A. Pluto is 375 to 400 degrees below zero Fahrenheit.
Q. I weigh 30 kilograms on Earth. How much would I weigh on Pluto?
A. You would weigh about 2 kilograms on Pluto.
Q. I weigh 60 pounds on Earth. How much would I weigh on Pluto?
A. You would weigh almost 4 pounds on Pluto.
4.What Is Mars?
Mars is a planet. It is the fourth planet from the sun. It is the next planet beyond Earth. Mars is more than 142 million miles from the sun. The planet is about one-sixth the size of Earth. Mars is known as the Red Planet. It gets its red color from the iron in its soil. Mars has two small moons. Their names are Phobos and Deimos.
What Is Mars Like?
Mars is very cold. The average temperature on Mars is minus 80 degrees Fahrenheit -- way below freezing!
Mars is rocky with canyons, volcanoes and craters all over it. Red dust covers almost all of Mars. It has clouds and wind, just as Earth does. Sometimes the wind blows the red dust into a dust storm. Tiny dust storms can look like tornados, and large ones can cover the whole planet!
Mars has about one-third the gravity of Earth. A rock dropped on Mars would fall slower than a rock dropped on Earth. Things weigh less on Mars than they weigh on Earth. A person who weighs 100 pounds on Earth would only weigh about 37 pounds on Mars because of less gravity.