Should Pluto Be A Planet?????

Answer 1

Nope. It is just a tiny hunk of ice. It orbits in a highly eccentric orbit compared to the others and is rightfully a part of the Kuiper Field. It just happened to be a sphere in shape, and thus incorrectly called a planet.

Those people who want it as a planet. You are shortsighted. If Pluto is a planet, we also need to add, Xena (which is BIGGER! than Pluto), 2005 FY9, 2003 EL61, Sedna, Quaoar, and possibly more of the 1000 other Trans-Neptunian objects found. And don't forget Ceres in the Asteroid Field!

Just drop Pluto. The next generation won't have to memorize it as a planet. Looks like only the former-schoolchildren (that's us) are being crybabies over this. The future schoolchildren would most likely not give a crud.

Eh...and why are we even arguing? Pluto will be Pluto. No matter whatever they call it. Planet or dwarf planet.

Answer 2

MANLAW UPDATE:
Pluto is far too puny to be counted as a planet, or even a girly-planet. HOWEVER... Pluto retains planet status under the Grandfather clause exception, having been awarded said status in good faith.

Answer 3

Yes, it should. Any new criteria should apply only to newly discovered planets. I think it's outrageous that Pluto has been disqualified as a planet. I'll tell you what, though: For as long as I live, Pluto is going to be referred as a planet by me.

Answer 4

No.

Most people have been saying for years that Pluto should not be a planet.

Answer 5

Geezzzz all the time I wasted in school trying to remember the planets and then they change their mind on what is a planet.... As far as I'm concerned Pluto will always be a planet no matter what the latest definition is....

Getting too old to change my thinking now

Answer 6

If it doesn't fit the definition of a planet, then it shouldn't be considered one. As our technology and scientific knowledge grows, we learn more and more about things. In this case, they've discovered that Pluto doesn't actually fit the definition and isn't actually a planet.

Answer 7

its a planet

definition of 'planet': A nonluminous celestial body larger than an asteroid or comet, illuminated by light from a star, such as the sun, around which it revolves. In the solar system there are nine known planets: Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune, and PLUTO.

(if mickey has a dog, why doesn't miney have one too...)

Answer 8

Yes! Yes! Yessssss!

Please read following data on PLUTO.

Pluto (planet) is the ninth planet from the Sun, smallest and outermost known planet of the solar system. Pluto revolves about the Sun once in 247.9 Earth years at an average distance of 5,880 million km (3,650 million mi). The planet’s orbit is so eccentric that at certain points along its path Pluto is slightly closer to the Sun than is Neptune. Pluto is about 2,360 km (1,475 mi) in diameter, about two-thirds the size of Earth's moon. Discovered in 1930, Pluto is the most recent planet in the solar system to be detected. The planet was named after the god of the underworld in Roman mythology. Pluto is the only planet that has not yet been visited by a spacecraft. However, in January 2006 the New Horizons spacecraft was launched from Cape Canaveral, Florida, and scientists anticipate that it will reach Pluto by 2015.

All the information astronomers have on Pluto comes from observation through large telescopes. Pluto was discovered as the result of a telescopic search inaugurated in 1905 by American astronomer Percival Lowell, who postulated the existence of a distant planet beyond Neptune as the cause of slight irregularities in the orbits of Uranus and Neptune. Continued after Lowell’s death by members of the Lowell Observatory staff, the search ended successfully in 1930, when American astronomer Clyde William Tombaugh found Pluto. However, the new planet appeared to be too small to affect the orbits of Uranus and Neptune. Astronomers later detected errors in Lowell’s calculations and determined that the irregularities Lowell noted in the orbits do not exist. The discovery of Pluto now is seen as a lucky accident.

For many years very little was known about the planet, but in 1978 astronomers discovered a relatively large moon orbiting Pluto at a distance of only about 19,600 km (about 12,180 mi) and named it Charon. The orbits of Pluto and Charon caused them to pass repeatedly in front of one another as seen from Earth between 1985 and 1990, enabling astronomers to determine their sizes accurately. Charon is about 1,200 km (750 mi) in diameter, making Pluto and Charon the planet-satellite pair closest in size to one another in the solar system. Scientists often call Pluto and Charon a double planet.

Pluto and Charon are tidally locked, meaning that they always keep the same face toward each other as they rotate. The lengths of Charon's “day” and “month” (one orbit) are thus the same as Pluto's “day” (6.4 Earth days). Charon's orbit is also retrograde (clockwise viewed from Pluto's north pole).

Astronomers using the Hubble Space Telescope (HST) detected two more small moons orbiting Pluto beyond Charon in late 2005. Follow-up observations with the HST in February 2006 confirmed the existence of the moons, which orbit Pluto in the same plane and direction as Charon at distances of about 49,000 km (about 30,400 mi) and about 65,000 km (about 40,380 mi). The two moons later were officially named Nix and Hydra, in outward order. Additional observations with the HST in March 2006 showed that the two moons are the same color as Charon. The three moons have a neutral color, like Earth’s moon, and contrast with Pluto, which has a pinkish hue.

The findings that all three moons orbit in the same plane and have the same color lend support to the theory that Pluto’s system formed from the collision of two large bodies about 4.6 billion years ago. Pluto survived the collision, according to this theory, and the material that afterward was thrown into orbit around Pluto eventually formed Charon and the two newly discovered moons.

Answer 9

Yes

Answer 10

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No.
Should Pluto be a dog?
Maybe.
Why a mouse have a dog?
I don't know.


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