What, you thought I wouldn’t include Pluto? No, it’s not my favorite planet, but New Horizons’ mission there was awesome, and this is one of the many reasons why.
And yes, next week will be Charon.
Pluto’s Colorful Composition
Astronomy Picture of the Week – Pluto’s Colorful Composition
YES!!! 😀
Cheers.
Pluto certainly is my favourite planet and IAU be damned. A planets a planet no matter how small!
(Also Pluto passes the Star Trek test with looking planet-like, dwarf stars are still counted as stars so why not dwarf planets and Earth couldn’t clear its orbit at Pluto’s distance either among much more. Don’t get me started .. )
I love that little*, amazing, surprising, geologically* and atmospherically complex & differentiated world which boasts more moons than the entire inner solar system combined.***
* Or is it? If we count dwarf planets as planets -- which I do and think there’s a strong case for -- and there’s a lot of smaller ice dwarf type worlds then Pluto’s actually average in size and maybe even larger than most. Larger than Eris even though admittedly slightly less massive.
** Or technically Hade~ologically?
*** Pluto wins five to three. Pluto holding Charon, Nix, Hydra, Kerberos, and Styx within its gravity well versus Earth’s single Moon and Mars’es two moonlets Phobos and Diemos for the entire inner rock dwarf planets combined.