In this except from "Space Camp," a special series from NPR science podcast Short Wave, host Regina Barber delves into Pluto's demotion from planet to dwarf planet.

While the orbit of our own moon is reliable enough to travel or set a clock by, the same does not hold for Pluto's moons Nix and Hydra.

While Pluto satisfies the first two, it doesn't meet the third requirement. Were it a proper planet, it would've collected or scattered all Kuiper belt objects in its orbit.

Pluto’s orbit, for instance, varies from 30 to 49 AU. Because of this large and unusual orbit, scientists believe 2017 OF201 might have been influenced by the gravity of a giant planet long ago.

Over the course of Pluto's long year—equivalent to 248 Earth years—first the north pole and then the south pole are angled toward the distant Sun. But unlike Earth, Pluto's orbit is stretched ...

The dwarf planet Pluto is heading away from the Sun and that’s having a devastating impact on its atmosphere.

Pluto’s largest moon, Charon, has a synchronous orbit with the dwarf planet, meaning that it rotates on itself exactly once for each orbit around Pluto. Like Earth’s moon and most of the other ...

New observations of Pluto's moons reveal a system in pandemonium, according to scientists with the New Horizons mission.

Pluto, once considered the ninth planet of our solar system, has been a topic of intrigue since its reclassification as a ...