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Pluto
God/dess of the Underworld-rules ScorpioThe discovery of Pluto was due to a remarkable chain of accidental
events spanning several decades, decreed by fate.--discoverer Clyde
TombaughThe Fates stepped in and remote, enigmatic Pluto was finally
sighted in 1930 after a long search. Expected to be quite large, it is the
smallest planet, only 1860 miles in diameter. Its single moon, Charon, is
half as large, suggesting a binary planet system. The two bodies dance
around each other in fixed positions in about six and a half Earth days.
Scientists canšt seem to decide about Pluto. Many now consider it not a
planet but rather a premier member of the Kuiper Belt, a broad band that
houses some comets and other cosmic ice balls. Whatever it is, with an
orbit of 248 years, Pluto is going to ask deep questions that take more
than one lifetime to answer. Its orbit is steeply inclined to the ecliptic
and highly elliptical. It can reach as far as 4 billion miles from the Sun
and then come in to about 2500 million miles, actually coming closer to the
Sun than Neptune for a 20-year period (most recently in1979-1999). Close to
perihelion, it travels through a sign (Scorpio) in about 12 years; at
aphelion it takes 30 years to go through Taurus, defining very different
generation gaps. Wrote Plutonian discoverer Clyde Tombaugh 50 years after
its sighting: "Its nature is more strange than ever. Its status as an
object is engulfed in mystery. Everything about Pluto was unexpected. One
can only speculate on what new things will be learned about Pluto in the
future." Secretive and psychological Pluto represents the archetypal
mystery of the underworld, where our most hidden desires and motivations
are buried, like skeletons or treasures.Back to "Meet the Planets" Mainpage