Dwarf Planet

Pluto.

A dwarf planet in the Kuiper belt, with a heart of nitrogen ice.

Pluto right now

From Earth right now: 5,294,985,183 km
Its light reaches us after: 4 h 54 min
From the Sun: 5,329,160,053 km
Speed around the Sun: 5.23 km/s
Around its orbit: 15% of the way from perihelion

Worked out in your browser from JPL's orbital elements, the same maths that moves the planets in the 3D viewer. How far Pluto is from Earth right now, with miles, AU and the next close approach.

Overview

Pluto at a glance

Pluto is a dwarf planet in the Kuiper Belt, the first such object ever discovered, and the largest known. With a diameter of 2,377 km it is smaller than Earth's Moon. Its 248-Earth-year orbit is so eccentric (e = 0.249) that for 20 years of every orbit Pluto is closer to the Sun than Neptune. Reclassified from "planet" to "dwarf planet" by the IAU in 2006, it has five moons; the largest, Charon, is so massive that the two orbit a barycentre outside Pluto itself.

Diameter: 2,377 km
From the Sun: 5.9B km
Year: 248 years
Axial tilt: 119.51°
Moons: 5
Type: Dwarf Planet

Size, to scale

Atmosphere

A thin, seasonal haze

A thin atmosphere of nitrogen with a little methane and carbon monoxide, about 13 microbar at the surface (roughly 1/80,000 of Earth's). It swells when Pluto is nearer the Sun, and as Pluto moves farther away over the coming decades much of it may freeze and fall back to the surface as snow.

Seen edge on, along the line between day and night.

Surface

Nitrogen ice and water-ice mountains

A surprise from New Horizons (2015): vast nitrogen-ice plains (Sputnik Planitia, the heart-shaped feature), water-ice mountains up to 3.5 km tall, possible cryovolcanoes, and active geology despite the tiny scale.

A close pass, stopped where the surface map runs out of detail.

Interior

Inside Pluto

Likely a rocky core surrounded by a water-ice mantle, with hints of a subsurface ocean detected from surface tectonics.

Formation

How it formed

Formed in the outer protoplanetary disc 4.5 billion years ago, in the same population as the rest of the Kuiper Belt. Charon may have formed from a giant impact, similar to Earth's Moon.

Orbit

Where Pluto is today

Average distance from the Sun: 5.91 billion km (39.5 AU). Orbital period 248 Earth years. Tilted 17° from the ecliptic and so eccentric that 20 years of each orbit are inside Neptune's. The two never collide, thanks to a stabilising 2:3 orbital resonance.

Sunlight takes

4 h 56 min

to reach Pluto, and its reflected light needs 4 h 54 min more to reach us.

Moons

Pluto's major moons

CharonCharon is Pluto's largest moon, so large relative to Pluto that they orbit a common center of gravity.1,212 km · 19,591 km out

Missions

Who has been to look

2015New HorizonsPast flyby
The only spacecraft ever to visit Pluto. Continued outward to fly past Arrokoth in 2019.

Go further

See it for yourself

Questions

Asked about Pluto

Why is Pluto not a planet?

The IAU's 2006 definition requires a planet to have "cleared its orbital neighbourhood." Pluto shares its orbital region with thousands of other Kuiper Belt objects.

How many moons does Pluto have?

Five: Charon, Styx, Nix, Kerberos, and Hydra.

How long is a year on Pluto?

248 Earth years.

Compare and follow Pluto

Other bodies

Sources & methodology

Numbers cross-referenced with the sources below; surface and atmosphere descriptions reflect findings as of October 2026. Renderings in the 3D viewer use textures based on Solar System Scope and NASA imagery.