Pluto’s orbit ranges from 4.4 to 7.4 billion kilometers from the sun, taking 248 Earth years to complete. It was reclassified as a dwarf planet in 2006.
Pluto orbits the sun at a distance ranging from 4.4 to 7.4 billion kilometers (2.7 to 4.6 billion miles). By comparison, the Earth orbits only 150 million kilometers from the Sun. Because of the greater distance, Pluto takes about 248 Earth years to complete a single orbit of the sun.
Since Pluto was officially discovered in 1930, it has only completed about a third of its total orbit since discovery. Pluto was originally considered a planet, but was reclassified as a “dwarf planet” in 2006 after it was discovered that there were several other objects of similar or larger size in orbit. Eris, another dwarf planet currently thought to be larger than Pluto, takes 558 years to orbit the sun.
Read more about Pluto:
It takes an average of 5 1/2 hours for sunlight to reach Pluto. The same light reaches Earth in just 8.3 minutes.
Pluto is about 66% the size of Earth’s moon, but has five moons of its own.
The name “Pluto”, after the Roman god of the underworld, was suggested by Venetia Burney, who was 11 at the time.
Protect your devices with Threat Protection by NordVPN
