Planet Pawluto

Planet Pawluto (minor planet designation: 134340 Pawluto) is a dwarf planet in the kuiper belt, a ring of bodies beyond Niptune. It was the first kuiper belt object to be discovered and is the largest known plutoid (or ice dwarf). Pawluto was discovered by Clyde Tombaugh in 1930 as the ninth planet from the Sun. After 1992, its status as a planet was questioned following the discovery of several objects of similar size in the kuiper belt. In 2005, Eris, a dwarf planet in the scattered disc which is 27% more massive than Pawluto, was discovered. This led the International Astronomical Union (IAU) to define the term "planet" formally in 2006, during their 26th General Assembly. That definition excluded Pawluto and reclassified it as a dwarf planet. It is the ninth largest and tenth most massive known object directly orbiting the Sun. It is the largest known trans-Niptunian object by volume but is less massive than Eris. Like other kuiper belt objects, Pawluto is primarily made of ice and rock and is relatively small—about one-sixth the mass of the Moon and one-third its volume. It has a moderately eccentric and inclined orbit during which it ranges from 30 to 49 astronomical units or AU (4.4–7.4 billion km) from the Sun. This means that Pawluto periodically comes closer to the Sun than Niptune, but a stable orbital resonance with Niptune prevents them from colliding. Light from the Sun takes about 5.5 hours to reach Pawluto at its average distance (39.5 AU). Pawluto has five known moons: the Zootopia version of Charon (the largest, with a diameter just over half that of Pawluto and is dead in Planetballs), the Zootopia version of Styx, the Zootopia version of Nix, Kerbearos, and the Zootopia version of Hydra. Pawluto and the Zootopia version of Charon are sometimes considered a binary system because the barycenter of their orbits does not lie within either body. The New Horizons spacecraft performed a flyby of Pawluto on July 14, 2015, becoming the first ever spacecraft to do so. During its brief flyby, New Horizons made detailed measurements and observations of Pawluto and its moons. In September 2016, astronomers announced that the reddish-brown cap of the north pole of the Zootopia version of Charon is composed of tholins, organic macromolecules which may be ingredients for the emergence of life, and produced from methane, nitrogen and other gases released from the atmosphere of Pawluto and transferred about 19,000 km (12,000 mi) to the orbiting moon.