Pluto
2006-09-03 13:40:29 · 13 answers · asked by XKuraYamiX 2 in Education & Reference ➔ Other - Education
No as of August 24, 2006 (explanation below)...
A dwarf planet is a category of celestial bodies in the solar system defined in a resolution passed by the International Astronomical Union (IAU) on August 24, 2006.
The resolution describes a dwarf planet as an object that:
1) Is in orbit around the Sun
2) Has sufficient mass for its self-gravity to overcome rigid body forces so that it assumes a hydrostatic equilibrium (nearly round) shape
3) Has not "cleared the neighbourhood" around its orbit
4) Is not a satellite of a planet, or other nonstellar body
It differs from the definition of the planet in that the dwarf planet has not cleared its orbital neighbourhood. This definition reclassified Pluto from a planet to a dwarf planet because it has not cleared the neighbourhood of its orbit (the Kuiper Belt).
2006-09-03 13:49:35 · answer #1 · answered by Andy S 6 · 1⤊ 1⤋
It depends on whom you ask, and will for a while. The recently approved international answer is that it is a dwarf planet (which is a different category from regular-old planet). Some astronomers think it should still be a planet, but that raises some interesting questions -- like what do we do with all the other objects out there that are as big (or even bigger than) Pluto? After all, past Pluto are lots of other big snowballs remaining to be classified. Some of them are probably bigger than our favorite underdog planet.
If Pluto's a planet, then within a decade or so, we're going to have hundreds of planets. Try getting an elementary school kid to model those, and learn their names. It won't happen.
I suspect that even if the astronomers end up keeping Pluto and its other ball-of-ice brethren as planets, the teachers and parents of the world will rebel, and tell kids just to memorize the eight big ones. Kids will learn that there's a large group of snowballs out there, and that the first one we discovered is called Pluto. Past that, we'll just ignore the other snowballs, whether we call them planets or not.
After all, that's pretty much what happened with the moons. I remember memorizing the moons as a kid, but now we're up to 95+ of them (not counting trojan moons or Earth's "part-time" moons, or any of the other junk out there that's hard to classify). I doubt there are many schoolrooms out there forcing youngsters to memorize all those moons today -- there are just too darned many of them, and we keep discovering more. Kids probably still learn about our moon, and Phobos and Deimos, and the Galilean moons around Jupiter, and so forth, but the rest of them are probably kept under the safe heading of "etc."
2006-09-03 20:58:19 · answer #2 · answered by Graythebruce 3 · 0⤊ 1⤋
Pluto is Mickey Mouse's house dog.
2006-09-03 20:47:46 · answer #3 · answered by Anonymous · 0⤊ 0⤋
no, it's suppose to be a moon that drifted away from some planet, can't remember the name of the planet. Google it.
2006-09-03 20:46:44 · answer #4 · answered by Estrellia 1 · 0⤊ 0⤋
it's been demoted to the status of "dwarf planet" in our solar system (there are a couple others too, i know ceres is one of them)...because of its orbit, it doesn't meet the new definition of "planet" created by astronomers, so we now only have 8 major planets in our solar system. i love how science is always changing, don't you?
2006-09-03 20:50:04 · answer #5 · answered by moondancer629 4 · 1⤊ 0⤋
yes, they can't take Pluto away from me
2006-09-03 20:46:14 · answer #6 · answered by waplambadoobatawhopbamboo 5 · 0⤊ 0⤋
It is now clasified as a 'Dwarf Planet'
2006-09-03 20:45:41 · answer #7 · answered by gfminis 2 · 1⤊ 1⤋
Kinda sorta, its a dwarf planet.
2006-09-03 20:42:21 · answer #8 · answered by modenum42 2 · 2⤊ 2⤋
they took it off the solar system
2006-09-03 20:46:17 · answer #9 · answered by Anonymous · 0⤊ 0⤋
no its now just a chunk of ice :-(
2006-09-03 20:46:06 · answer #10 · answered by Pobept 6 · 0⤊ 0⤋