Pluto's seasons

Filed under explaining science, trans-neptunian objects, Pluto, dwarf planets beyond Neptune

Go Back

With an orbital eccentricity of 0.24, Pluto is almost twice as far from the Sun at aphelion than at perihelion. Its seasons are aligned with this elliptical orbit such that perihelion occurs at the transition from northern winter to spring.

Emily Lakdawalla after Candy Hansen

Copyright holder: Emily Lakdawalla

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.
Contact us to request publication permission from the copyright holder.