fi pluto is no longer a planet, ten, are the boundaries of our system changed,?

Question

where are they now, what's the point of reference?

Answer 1

The system remains the same. Nothing spacial has changed.

Visualize the eight planets as revolving in a flat orbit around the sun's equatorial zone. Okay?

Now, beyond that, visualize a large group of millions of icy objects orbiting the sun in an oblong orbit. That's the Kuiper Belt; and Pluto is the largest object in it. The reason Pluto was made a planet was because at the time of it's discovery, nobody knew the Kuiper Belt existed. Since 1930, though, we've discovered many, many objects there, some bigger than Pluto.

Still with me?

Now, Way, Way beyond that is a whole cloud of icy objects known as the Oort Cloud. This is where most of the comets originate.

And all of this is, was, and ever shall be, our solar system. Nothing's changed.

Okay?

Answer 2

No, the boundaries haven't changed. The boundary of the solar system is defined by the heliopause -- the point at which the sun's magnetic field ceases to deflect hard radiation from other stars. Because the solar system itself is moving in relation to the rest of the galaxy and universe, this field is roughly egg-shaped, with the smaller end pointing in the direction of travel.

What HAS changed is our understanding of the composition of the solar system. Pluto itself was only discovered in 1930 (predicted by Percival Lowell in 1915). In retrospect, it seems that the peculiar orbit of Pluto, tipped 17+ degrees to the plane of the ecliptic and passing inside the orbit of Neptune, should have clued us to the fact that it was something other than a normal planet.

The other thing that's changed is that now we have a more precise definition of what 'planet' means. Actually, there was NO definition up until this year.

Answer 3

Nope. Pluto is not considered the edge of our solar system. So even if it loses it's planetary status the boundaries do not change. There's the Kuiper (spelling?) Belt and many other snowball like objects beyond Pluto. The link below looks like it gives a good summary. I think anything within the helioshere is considered part of our solar system. That heliosphere is bounded by the heliopause. See the link below for details.

Answer 4

I don't really know what the standard point of reference is, but if the orbit of Pluto was the boundary line, then it would now be the orbit of Neptune. If the Oort Cloud (of comets) or something like that was the boundary, then Pluto's status makes no difference.

Answer 5

I have made my own new definitions:

4 GIANT planets: Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune
4 Major planets: Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars
5 dwarf planets: Pluto, Xena, Sedna, Ceres, and another unnamed

And any large moon (1000km +) becomes a 'planetoid' satellite: Luna, Io, Europa, Ganymede, Callisto, Titan, Dione, Rhea, Iapetus, Tethys, Ariel, Oberon, Titania, Umbriel, Triton, Charon.

Answer 6

One limit is called Termination Shock, approx. 9 billion miles from the sun. It has to do with the speed of the solar wind.

Another is the theoretical Oort cloud, about 1 light year away. That is the extreme range of the sun's ability to keep objects in orbit.

Right now, Voyager 1 has passed the Termination Shock and is still sending data back to Earth more than 9 billion miles away.

Answer 7

Not that i read of. They said that right now they are trying to make a definition of what a plnet really is, with that they say that it might be possible that there are many more planets out there, but they would be called dwarf planets.
This site is home site of Internantional Astronamical Union. There you will find everything you want to know. I just started reading about this.
Byt hey, really good question.
Good Luck

Answer 8

The solar system consists of everything orbiting our sun. This extended far beyond Pluto anyways, Pluto has nothing to do with defining its edge.

Answer 9

Go to Wikipedia and type in 2006 Redefinition of A planet and you'll get the whole story. -- It's really cool. -- Enjoy. (I was gonna cut and paste the article, but it's a lot of data - and most people, when given a ton of data, only take what they like.)


2006 redefinition of planet
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Answer 10

No, because Pluto still ther, they just change their mind about what is a planet and what a pice of rock with ice.