World
Pluto
Pluto is a dwarf planet beyond Neptune, counted as the ninth planet until 2006, about 2 377 km across.
Where it is right now is on the live 3D map.
Key facts
- Diameter
- 2 377 km
- Goes round
- The Sun
See it from here
Not by eye, and not with binoculars: Pluto is nearly 3 000 times fainter than the faintest star you can see, so it takes a telescope.
How the map draws it
Its colours are the ones NASA published, put together from three of New Horizons’ colour filters, none of them green: this is enhanced colour, stronger than and not the same as what an eye would see · the far south was in winter darkness when New Horizons passed in 2015 and is left plain, not guessed · lit as a camera exposed for its own sunlight would show it · seen from far off it is a light at its computed brightness: the glow is how a camera records a point too bright to resolve.