Should Pluto be dropped as a planet?

Question

Scientists are deciding soon whether Pluto should be downgraded from a planet as they have found some bigger lumps of rock/ice nearby, why not rename one of those as Pluto?

Answer 1

no................................

Answer 2

If scientists decide to relegate Pluto from planet status then I might have to change the mneumonic for remembering the planets;

My Very Easy Method: Just Set Up Nine Planets

then what will I do?

Scientist might be able to find a fancy definition for planets and probably the likes of you and I will not be able to understand it. Personally, I'd prefer that they leave the planets as they are. We should be content to know that Pluto was the first of the Kuipier Belt Objects to be discovered. Although there are believed to be more than 70,000 KBOs only a handful are believed to be of similar size to that of Pluto so I see no harm in giving those larger ones names as well.

I'd rather that our top astronomers were devoting more time to other things like understanding dark matter for example.

Answer 3

Rules are meant to represent standards and order but having said that aren't they supposed to be bent a little? Pluto has a good case for being a planet simply because a lot of people know of it as a planet. You can ask any preschooler how many planets there are in the solar system and the answer you will get is 9. Why? Because he or she was taught that.If they do decide to 'demote' Pluto, it will create a lot of confusion for millions of people for many years to come. Let Pluto be the exception rather than the rule.

Answer 4

Yeah, I don't get this because all of the planets are smaller than the sun (Yes, I understand it's a star) so why aren't all of them dropped? Scientists are idiots.
It has been known for about 76 years ( I think ) and since then, it's been a planet... I don't care what scientists say, Pluto is a planet and it always will be... Also, if it's not a planet then what is New Horizons heading towards (look it up)?

Answer 5

We can now measure things better and see further than we ever have before, but that doesn't change the meaning of things that have gone before. Pluto was a planet because it was found orbiting the sun at the out fringes of the solar system.

As we find more bodies of plutonic size or larger now orbiting the sun, we wish to change the considered opinions of our forefathers, are we so much better than the people whom gave us a knowledge upon which we have built our modern world?

Leave Pluto as it is, predicted by Percival Lowell, and discovered/confirmed by Clyde Tombaugh, a planet that effects the orbits of two other planets, Neptune and Uranus. Do the other asteroids do that?

Answer 6

I have mixed feelings about that question. The part of me that wants to find out all we can about our planet, our solar system, etc. says that if enough evidence is presented to downgrade Pluto to something other than a planet, then so be it. On the other hand, I have spent my entire life believing there are 9 planets, the farthest out being Pluto. It's not easy to give up something you have believed all your life. I guess I can't really say yes or no.

Answer 7

General question. What makes a planet a planet? Is it the mass? Diameter? Orbit? Distance from the sun?

I would say that the following are minimum characteristics of planets.

1 & 2 below are arbitrary, you may prefer other variables.

1. Minimum Mass. 10^20 Kg. (about 1/100th the mass of Pluto).
2. Minimum Diameter. 1,500 Km (about 900 miles)
3. Orbit. Must be in orbit around a sun, and not a planet (therefore, Luna is not a planet, even though it's larger than Pluto).
4. Distance from sun. Not relevant, as long as it is clearly in orbit around the sun. Therefore, a massive sun may have planets dozen's of light-years away.
5. Is not itself a sun. That would be a binary or higher system.
6. Must not be in interstellar space, not associated with a sun or suns.
7. Not in a field of other bodies with the same approximate orbit. That would leave out anything in the Asteroid Belt and Oort Cloud.


Now, how about "Xena" (aka, 2003 UB313)? To Hades (Greek God of the underworld) with conventions for naming planets. Xena is perfect. And Gabrielle for the moon.

BTW: I was going to ask a similar question. Thanks for saving me 5 pts and getting me 2. (12?).

BTW redux. It's good to get away from the 'Politics' pages for a while.

Answer 8

I think it should be removed from planetary status. It has only been considered a planet since 1930 so saying it should stay because it has always been a planet just isn't quite right. My grandparents are older than Pluto's status as a planet. It is also smaller than many of the other planet's moons so just using its size as a minimum doesn't work either unless we want to add a host of moons to the list of planets in our solar system.

As there is no definition for a planet in the science of astronomy I think it important that a definition be decided upon for future research and classification.

Answer 9

Nah. I think that Pluto should be set as the baseline for the minimum size at which a body ought to be called a planet.

The word "planet" originally derives from the greek word for "wanderer" so the word itself is a label for an astronomical body which is not a star, but which orbits one directly - i.e. not a moon, which orbits a world orbiting a star.

Pluto, Xena, Sedna and the others all orbit the Sun - they should be called planets.

Answer 10

This argument was discussed as far back as 1999 when the International Astronomical Union officially voted to retain Pluto's classification as a planet.

For all you need to know about this, including what classes a planet as a planet read the page linked below. It is quite enlightening and answers the Pluto question.

Answer 11

Since scientist and everyone else don really have a good definiton of a planet, just leave pluto as a planet until we master light speed and can go out there to see for ourselves:-)