How close is Pluto?

Answer 1

That's a difficult question to answer precisely. Pluto's average distance from the Sun is 39.4 AU. (An AU is an Astronomical Unit and is defined as the average distance between the center of the Earth and the center of the Sun.) One AU equals 92,955,807 million miles, or about 93 million miles, but Pluto's distance from the Sun ranges from 29.7 to 49.3 AU. So, depending on the orbits of Pluto and Earth, the distance between the two could be anywhere from 28.7 AU (Earth directly between Pluto and Sun when Pluto is closest to the Sun) to 50.3 AU (Earth directly opposite Sun from Pluto when Pluto is furthest from the Sun). However, keep in mind that an AU is an average and that Earth's actual orbit varies anywhere from 91 to 94.5 million miles. Hope that helps.