Pluto not a planet?

Question

All of my life, I have been told Pluto is a planet and now they are saying it's not a planet? What is that?

Answer 1

It is too small, and has a "cometary" orbit that takes it inside the orbit of Uranus for Earth years at a time. The discovery of Xena (another iceball outer dwarf planet) forced the redefining of what a planet is, since it was further out than Pluto, but larger!
Don't sweat the "number of planets" thing, unless you are really keen on the number nine. If you want to count Pluto as a planet, go ahead. Bet that comes up in coversation ALL the time, huh?

Answer 2

Pluto is still Pluto it has only been re-classified. The reasons are:- 1) That it is a captured object from the Kuyper Belt and it has a lot of completely different features that the other eight planets don't have. Such as a very elliptical comet like orbit which brings it closer to the Sun than Neptune on occasions. It is inclined to the ecliptic like no other planet. It has 3 moons almost as big as itself and is just an odd ball that doesn't seem to belong to the other planets.

2) There are quite a number of these objects and without re-classification we would end up with around 20 planets in the solar system. The re-classification is just there to more accurately reflect our rapidly increasing knowledge of this strange World, things about it that we didn't know 5 years ago.

Jules Australia.

Answer 3

Pluto as a planet has its supporters
By CANDICE FERRETTE
THE JOURNAL NEWS

YONKERS — Jack Patterson is starting to get a little ticked off at the scientific community these days.

In fact, the clean-cut, 8-year-old from Briarcliff had some stern words for astronomers who stripped Pluto of its status as the solar system's ninth planet.

"I can't take it anymore. Make a decision and say that's the answer! I mean, how could you say that something is correct for so many years and then it be so very incorrect all of a sudden?" Jack said as his mother purchased tickets to an afternoon show at the Andrus Planetarium at the Hudson River Museum yesterday.

This weekend was the planetarium's first public space educational shows since the International Astronomical Union's meeting in the Czech Republic on Thursday, during which it approved a proposal to recast the solar system, demoting Pluto to a "dwarf planet."

"It's just a way of classifying some of the planets," said Marc Taylor, the planetarium's coordinator as he prepared for the 3:30 p.m. show. "It's just like saying someone is tall or short or thin or fat. It's all relative. Things aren't always as black and white."

After years of debate within the scientific community, astronomers decided that Pluto did not fit into a category with the other planets because its oblong orbit overlaps with Neptune's. To be considered a planet, it would need to have "cleared its neighbor around its orbit," according to the union's decision.

But that was little comfort to those who seemed a bit attached to the former planet.

"We all grew up knowing Pluto," said Chris Kubasek, 40, of Yonkers who took his stepdaughter Ava Perillo, 5, to the planetarium. "Why after all these years, are they saying it's not a planet? I suppose it could be like Prince and have a symbol. We could call it the planet formerly known as Pluto or something."

Paul Furman, 72, of New Rochelle said the ruling posed another potential problem.

"What's going to happen to Walt Disney's dog?" Furman chided. "Silly telescope."

Answer 4

The icy, enigmatic planet of Pluto is the ninth and furthest planet from our sun. The planet Pluto is also the smallest in our solar system; it is even smaller than many of the moons that orbit other planets.

While attempting to locate the cause of Neptune’s orbital interruption, Clyde W. Tombaugh discovered Pluto on February 18, 1930. While mistaken to believe that Pluto was the planet causing the disturbance, Tombaugh was correct about its presence.

The planet Pluto has yet to be visited by a spacecraft. It is hoped that the New Horizons craft will reach the planet on July 14, 2015. We do know that Pluto is a planet made up mostly of ice. Like its atmosphere, this icy surface is composed of Nitrogen, Methane and Carbon Monoxide. Its unusual 90,613-day orbit causes an anti-green house effect through freezing and sublimation.

One of the largest objects of the Kuiper Belt, the planet Pluto was named after the Roman god. This name, as well as its astronomical symbol, also reveres Percival Lowell, who predicted the existence of the planet years previous to its actual discovery.

For pictures of the planet Pluto, additional information, and other interactive features, see this links :
http://www.space.com/pluto/
http://www.space.com/scienceastronomy/sedna_pluto_040317.html
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2001/02/0216_Pluto.html

Answer 5

I know!! I mean just because people say that they are no longer planets doesn't mean that its true. Pluto will always be a planet for me.

Answer 6

because it always has been a bit dubious and now they have found three more objects bigger so either it was increase the number of planets or get rid of Pluto

Answer 7

Don't cry. There are plenty of other things big and awesome beyond Pluto and in probably twenty years time there would be not eight but maybe 15 new palnets.

Answer 8

I thought I read that they classified it as a "dwarf planet"--=that makes it still a planet.

Answer 9

its a planet thats too small so its a dwarf planet so its not a planet..its just a small big thing of poop

Answer 10

They are idiots