Do you think Pluto should be calassified as a planet or Astriod?

Question

I heard it was a big debate between scientist.

Answer 1

It has a moon, and a orbit..its a planet...scientist should be lookiung for the cure for AIDS and not deciding if a planet is a planet or not

Answer 2

Well, since there's no such thing as an Astriod, I would imagine that between these two choices, Planet is the right one...

According to some, all bodies that orbit around the sun are planets, and bodies that orbit around bodies that orbit around the sun are called moons.

By this definition every asteroid, comet, and Meteor is considered a planet, and sometimes they are called the "lesser planets" to avoid confusion.

Pluto is a small planet compared to some of the others... and it's a funny one. Near the sun, there are small rocky planets. Then there are gas giants, and then there is Pluto, a little ball of ice, smaller than some moons of the Gas Giants, and a lot like many of them in composition.

I say pluto is a lesser planet, a cometoid planet, and we'll find a lot more like it elsewhere.

Answer 3

There is no definite way of classifying an object in the solar system as a planet, or just a rocky body.
Previously, the way of classifying the objects was based on their mass. Objects which have a sufficiently large mass are generally termed 'planets.'
The problem is that recently many rocky objects have been discovered in the Kuiper belt and Oort's cloud (which surround our solar system) that have a mass almost the same size as Pluto. Should these objects all be termed planets? Or should Pluto no longer be called a planet?
Furthermore, the property of orbiting the parent star cannot be used to classify planets - by that logic we should classify all comets and asteroids in our solar system as planets also.

The decision as to whether Pluto is a planet is purely one which must be decided upon - and a rather controversial one at that!
The reason for the great debate is that astrophysicists are essentially divided 50:50 on this problem.

I'd also like to make a point to the person who claims that scientists should spend their time curing AIDS and not worry about 'petty' things such as this. My point is such: the function of science is not to SOLELY benefit the human race - it is to understand the working of the universe, and possibly, as a by-product make technological or medical advancements. The pursuit of knowledge is the primary concern.
For example, if Einstein had never questioned the age-old principle of relative velocities established by Newton for the case of light, he would never have discovered relativity, and as a consequence, we would likely not be watching Television, or perhaps even using Yahoo! Answers, since the positioning of satellites must take relativistic effects into account. The implications of relativity could NOT have been known to Einstein during the first formulations of his theory! Was Einstein wrong to ponder upon this matter? I think not.

I'm sorry to get so side-tracked, but i hate reading the views of self-righteous people who know so little about what they talk about.

Now, to return to the question, in my personal opinion, i think that Pluto should be classified as a large asteroid, and not a planet. But that's just me.

Answer 4

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.

So, I say that Pluto is a planet.

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.

Answer 5

Pluto is not an asteroid. A significant majority of asteroids orbit in the Asteroid Belt between Mars and Jupiter. They range in size from Ceres (the largest at 1,000 km across) down to house-sized or even smaller sizes.

But, is it planet? That's the difficult question. The international astronomy conference currently under way in Europe is expected to answer whether or not Pluto is a planet. If Pluto loses its planetary status, it may be called a KBO (Kuyper Belt Object), TNO (Trans-Neptunian Object) or may be the first in a new class of planets called Ice Dwarf Planets. Check www.space.com for the latest. The answer is coming soon. Whether or not it is accepted is another problem.

Answer 6

I really wouldn't mind either way. We just need to be consistent in our definitions, and not hold on to "tradition" just for its own sake. Pluto shouldn't stay a planet just because it has been called a planet in the past. By this logic, we would already have another planet in the Mars-Jupiter asteroid belt... Ceres was thought to be a planet at first.

If Pluto were to maintain its planetary status, then we should also include Xena at the very least, since it is the one KBO which is larger than Pluto. And also possibly Sedna, Orcus, et. al. even though they are smaller.

If it were to lose its planetary status, then we could stop arguing about all the other KBOs out there.

Either way, let's pick a definition and stick to it. And move on.

Answer 7

I love the classics... keep it a planet! If they re-classify Pluto, what planet will they re-classify next? Mars? Venus? Pluto doesn't have to look like Earth no more than Mercury has to look like Jupiter to classify it as a planet in our solar system. I don't look anything like my sister, does that mean I shouldn't call her my sister because we don't fit the same mold?

It's called Diversity people!

Answer 8

An Asteroid doesn't have an atmosphere or its own moons.

Pluto does have an atmosphere and at least one moon.

Although it is small, I say it is a planet.

What else could it be? Even way out there in the Kuniper Belt (the outer rim of our solar system).

Answer 9

I think it's a planet, in that it has a moon.

And as to whether we should be spending resources deciding things like this instead of fighting AIDS: astronomers aren't very adept at biomedical science, so their career choice has sent them on this path.

Answer 10

If Pluto is downgraded from it's status as a planet, it should be called a planetoid.