Lead
"Found Pluto, a cold and dark 'underworld' where one year is equivalent to 248 years on Earth."
As soon as this news broke, it immediately attracted wide attention around the world, and people were amazed by the great achievements of human exploration of the solar system.
However, at this time, do you also want to know, how did humans discover Pluto?
What is so mysterious about it, and what are the important information that humans are exploring?
1. Demoted to a dwarf planet.
When people observe the night sky, in addition to the bright stars and the moon wandering leisurely in the sky, they can also see some other small "bright spots".
What are these little "highlights"?
Most of these points of light seen by humans from far away are asteroids in the solar system, which orbit the sun while also shining on the human world.
In addition to these asteroids, humanity may also see some larger "bright spots", which are all planets in the solar system.
Humans previously only knew that there were eight planets in the solar system, and the ninth-farthest planet from the Sun was Pluto.
Unlike the other eight planets, Pluto has its own unique trajectory and characteristics, which is why people classify it as an asteroid.
However, with the continuous development of human science and technology, human exploration of the solar system is getting deeper and deeper, and people have not only found many asteroids in the solar system, but also found that there are many other points of light similar to Pluto in the location of Pluto.
After observing and studying Pluto, people believe that it should have its own independent characteristics like the other eight planets, so Pluto is proposed separately and considered a new planet.
However, this will lead to a number of other planets in the solar system besides Pluto, which will greatly increase the number of planets, which will make it very difficult to detect and study planets.
Therefore, in order to facilitate people's exploration and research of planets, the International Astronomical Union has redefined planets and developed new planetary definition standards.
According to the International Astronomical Union's criteria for defining planets, only objects that meet the following three conditions can be considered planets: First, they must be celestial bodies orbiting the sun, that is, they must be celestial bodies in the solar system, not in other star systems.
Second, they must all have enough mass to have enough gravitational pull to be able to attract nearby celestial bodies around them to form their own "little systems."
Third, they must all be able to have some influence on celestial bodies near them, that is, they cannot have large celestial bodies near their orbits, so as to show that they have the ability to influence their orbits.
However, after the redefinition and division of the International Astronomical Union, mankind found that there were originally nine planets in the solar system, but after the reclassification, only eight planets met the new planetary standard, and Pluto, which was originally considered to be the ninth planet, did not meet the new planetary standard, so it was downgraded to a "dwarf planet" and classified as a "dwarf planet" in the solar system.
Second, it is located in the Kuiper Belt.
After Pluto was identified as a dwarf planet, it was classified as a "dwarf planet" in the solar system, and was considered to be the most remote "dwarf planet" in the solar system, so people called it together with other "dwarf planets" and called them "Hades".
"Dwarf planets" have been classified and divided into two categories, "Kuiper Belt Objects" and "Scattered Disk Objects".
Among them, most of the "Kuiper Belt Objects" are located in the Kuiper Belt, so people collectively refer to them as "Kuiper Belt Objects".
Pluto is the most representative "Kuiper Belt Object" and is considered to be the representative of the "Kuiper Belt Object".
Pluto and other "Kuiper Belt objects" are celestial bodies that were created after the formation of the solar system, and they formed about 4.6 billion years ago after the formation of the solar system, while Pluto and other "Kuiper Belt objects" were able to form in the solar system mainly because they were all leftover material after the formation of the solar system, and these residual materials were not absorbed by the sun after the formation of the solar system, and new planets were formed in the solar system, and Pluto was one of them.
The formation of Pluto is mainly due to the original matter after the formation of the solar system, due to the gravitational interaction in the solar system, the collision and attraction between the primitive matter, the formation of some larger objects, these larger objects also attract each other, and eventually form new planets, Pluto is one of them.
Pluto is an "asteroid" in the solar system that is far from the sun, so people have also classified it along with other "asteroids".
"Asteroids" are "asteroids" far away from the sun in the solar system, their structure and composition are very different from "planets", so people classify them together with planets, and divide them into "inner planets" and "outer planets", and Pluto is one of the "outer planets", and is considered to be the largest "asteroid" in the "outer planets", its volume and mass are relatively large, so it is considered a dwarf planet.
The biggest feature of Pluto is that it is far away from the Sun, so its orbital period is also relatively long, about 248 Earth years, therefore, it takes 248 years during its orbit, and during these 248 years, the environmental conditions in which Pluto is located will also change greatly.
Outside of our solar system, Pluto's temperature is extremely low, with the surface temperature only about 50 degrees Celsius below, so most of the time, Pluto is in the dark.
3. The composition of Pluto.
Pluto is in the dark, and it is difficult for people to observe its material composition with the naked eye, so people can understand its material composition through the study of Pluto.
Through the study of Pluto, people finally found that there are a large number of radioactive elements in the interior of Pluto, mainly because it absorbs a large amount of radioactive energy in the process of formation, resulting in the production of certain radioactive materials inside it.
These radioactive materials will continue to emit radioactive energy outward, so Pluto will continue to emit energy outward, and eventually form a "little sun" that shines in the solar system like the sun.
Studies of Pluto have also revealed that Pluto's interior is mostly made up of rocks and ice, while Pluto's surface is made up of ice and rocks, which are mostly made up of nitrogen ice, methane, and carbon monoxide.
After the formation of Pluto, these substances were activated by the radiant energy of the sun, causing the interior of Pluto to continuously emit gas and light, which were discovered by humans, thus finding Pluto.
The rocks inside Pluto are mostly made up of heavy elements such as iron, magnesium, and silicon, while ice is mostly made up of light elements such as water and carbon monoxide, which evaporate outwards after Pluto is formed, creating a thin atmosphere.
Pluto's atmosphere is very thin, mainly composed of carbon monoxide and methane, human beings in the exploration of Pluto, found that Pluto's atmosphere is very thin, its atmosphere is similar to the planet's atmosphere, mainly composed of thin gas, and Pluto's atmosphere will continue to evaporate outward, thus forming a certain atmospheric environment.
When humans explored Pluto, they also found that there are many mountains and canyons scattered on Pluto, which are formed by the collision and compression of the crustal plates inside Pluto, their height and thickness are very large, and there are even some mountains and canyons as high as several kilometers, the formation of these mountains and canyons has a lot to do with the rocky plates inside Pluto.
After the internal rock plates of Pluto collide and squeeze each other, many mountains and canyons will be formed, and the height and thickness of these mountains and canyons are very large, and eventually the crust of Pluto is formed, and the crust of Pluto is its surface, so through the observation of Pluto, human beings can find that there are many mountains and canyons on the crust of Pluto.
Human exploration of Pluto also found that there may be some underground oceans and ice volcanoes inside Pluto, which are formed by the ice and rocks inside Pluto, and as the ice and rocks inside Pluto continue to melt and erupt, they will emit gas and light outward, and these gases and rays will form a certain atmospheric environment.
epilogue
As a special celestial body in the solar system, Pluto has extreme environmental conditions, and its extreme environmental conditions may provide a unique living space for life forms other than the earth, so human exploration of Pluto will not only help to understand the formation and evolution of the solar system, but also expand the scope of human understanding of the universe.