The Sun's gravity holds Pluto in orbit from a distance of nearly 4 billion miles.

The Sun is the dominant gravitational force in our solar system, possessing a mass of approximately 1.989 x 10^30 kilograms. This mass is about 333,000 times that of Earth and accounts for nearly 99.86% of the solar system's total weight. According to Newton's Law of Universal Gravitation, the force of gravity between two objects is directly proportional to their masses and inversely proportional to the square of the distance between them.Pluto orbits at an average distance of roughly 3.7 billion miles (5.9 billion kilometers) from the Sun. At this range, the Sun's gravitational pull is significantly weaker than it is at Earth, yet it remains sufficient to keep the dwarf planet in a stable, elliptical orbit. This orbit takes approximately 248 Earth years to complete a single revolution around the Sun.The concept of 'escape velocity' is crucial here. For Pluto to break free from the Sun's influence, it would need to exceed the speed required to overcome the Sun's gravitational potential at that specific distance. Since Pluto travels at an average orbital speed of about 10,600 miles per hour, it remains trapped within the Sun's gravity well.NASA's New Horizons mission, which flew past Pluto in July 2015, provided precise data regarding Pluto's mass and orbital mechanics. This data confirmed that even at the edge of the Kuiper Belt, the Sun remains the primary anchor for all celestial bodies. Without this gravitational bond, conservation of momentum would cause all planets to travel in straight lines into interstellar space.