Draft No. 1 · played · desk: Science
Pluto
The lines, in the order they were uncovered
The subject was under black tape (wavy underline); giveaway words were under correction fluid (dotted underline).
- Unlike most of Disney's animated animal characters, Pluto does not talk.
- Pluto has an atmosphere when it is close to perihelion; the atmosphere freezes out as Pluto moves further from the Sun.
- Little is known about Pluto because of its great distance from Earth and because no exploratory satellites have visited Pluto yet.
- Its highly eccentric orbit makes it the eighth-most distant planet from the Sun for part of each orbit.
- Pluto is the Roman god of the Underworld, who the Greeks called Hades.
- Pluto is the ninth and smallest planet of our solar system.
Then: the ninth planet, one moon, no visitors. Now: a dwarf planet with five known moons, photographed up close by New Horizons in July 2015.
What happened next
When this version was saved in November 2001, Pluto was still the ninth planet, and the page shared space with the Roman god and Mickey Mouse's dog. The planet part expired first: in 2006 the International Astronomical Union redefined 'planet' and Pluto became a dwarf planet. The line about no visitors went next, when NASA's New Horizons flew past on 14 July 2015 and found ice mountains and a vast nitrogen glacier. It has five known moons, not one.
The whole first draft
Pluto is the ninth and smallest planet of our solar system. It was discovered by the astronomer Clyde Tombaugh at the Lowell Observatory in Arizona in 1930. Its highly eccentric orbit makes it the eighth-most distant planet from the Sun for part of each orbit. Pluto orbits in a 3/2 resonance with Neptune. Because of its small size and eccentric orbit, there has been some debate over whether it truly should be classified as a planet. There is mounting evidence that Pluto may in fact be a member of the Kuiper Belt, only one of a large number of distant icy bodies. A subclass of such objects have been dubbed plutinos, after Pluto.
Approximate Mass: 1.29 x 1022 kilograms
Approximate Diameter: 2300 kilometres
Average Distance from the Sun: 39.53 Astronomical units
Rotational Period: 6.39 days
Revolution Period: 247.7 years
Axial Tilt: 122.5 degrees
Mean Temperature: 37 Kelvin
Pluto has an atmosphere when it is close to perihelion; the atmosphere freezes out as Pluto moves further from the Sun.
Pluto has one natural satellite, Charon. Little is known about Pluto because of its great distance from Earth and because no exploratory satellites have visited Pluto yet.
The planet is named both for the Roman god Pluto, and for the astronomer Percival Lowell, who predicted that a planet would be found beyond …
Quoted from Wikipedia: "Pluto", revision 273963 (5 November 2001, by Bryan Derksen) and today's article, licensed CC BY-SA 3.0. Word counts checked 2026-10-31.
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