Pluto is a dwarf planet in the Kuiper belt, which is a ring of bodies beyond the orbit of Neptune. It was the first object discovered in the Kuiper belt. After Pluto was discovered in 1930, it was declared to be the ninth planet from the Sun. Beginning in the 1990s, though, its status as a planet was in jeapardy following the discovery of several objects of similar size in the Kuiper belt and the scattered disc, including the dwarf planet Eris. This led the International Astronomical Union to formally define the term planet—excluding Pluto and reclassifying it as a dwarf planet. So yeah, Pluto is a dwarf planet, not a planet.

Pluto is the ninth-largest known object directly orbiting the Sun. It is the largest known trans-Neptunian object by volume, but less massive than Eris. Like other Kuiper belt objects, Pluto is primarily made of ice and rock and is relatively small—one-sixth the mass of the Moon and one-third its volume. It has a moderately eccentric orbit, during which it ranges from 30 to 49 astronomical units from the Sun. This means that Pluto periodically comes closer to the Sun than Neptune, but a stable orbital resonance with Neptune prevents them from colliding. Light from the Sun takes 5.5 hours to reach Pluto at its average distance.

Pluto has five known moons: Charon (the largest, with a diameter just over half that of Pluto), Styx, Nix, Kerberos, and Hydra. Pluto and Charon are sometimes considered a binary system because the center of their orbits does not lie within either body.

The New Horizons spacecraft performed a flyby of Pluto on July 14, 2015, becoming the first and, to date, only spacecraft to do so. During its brief flyby, New Horizons made detailed measurements and observations of Pluto and its moons. In September 2016, astronomers announced that the reddish-brown cap of the north pole of Charon is composed of tholins, organic macro-molecules that may be ingredients for the emergence of life, and produced from methane, nitrogen and other gasses released from the atmosphere of Pluto and transferred 19,000 km (12,000 mi) to the orbiting moon.

Pluto has yet to complete a full orbit of the Sun since its discovery, as one Plutonian year is 247.68 years long.

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