is pluto still a planet?

Question

i know they were discussing it about a month ago but never heard what they decided. I hope it is i always felt sorry for pluto, all those people picking on it just because it was small

Answer 1

the international astronomical union defined three terms "planet", "dwarf planet", and "small solar system body". this does not change anything about the solar system or pluto. this isn't over yet tho. it seems that many planetary scientists are not satisfied with the definition.

i have been waiting for this since i was about twelve. i feel somewhat satisfied. this was the right thing to do, believe me. i don't understand why so many are having such a problem with this. this just corrects the mistake of classifying pluto as a planet at the start.

because pluto orbits the sun, is round, does not have an isolated orbit (a bunch of other similar bodies have similar orbits.), and is not a satellite it is a dwarf planet.

look here:
http://skytonight.com/news/3805531.html
http://www.iau2006.org/mirror/www.iau.org/iau0603/index.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kuiper_belt

Answer 2

Pluto's not a planet any more! ... said Alan Stearn, science chief of NASA's mission to Pluto. ... the world's astronomers voted on the change.") Still, it's important. As a planet, Pluto has always been an oddball. Its composition is like a comet's. Its elliptical orbit is tilted 17 degrees from the orbits of the other planets. Pluto was discovered on Feb. 18, 1930, by Clyde W. Tombaugh, and astronomers initially estimated it to be as large as Earth. They have since learned it is much smaller, smaller than Earth's Moon.

But Pluto continued to be called a planet, because there was nothing else to call it. Then, in 1992, astronomers found the first Kuiper Belt object. Now they have found hundreds of additional chunks of rock and ice beyond Neptune, including about 70 that share orbits similar to Pluto's, the so-called Plutinos.
A display describing the solar system includes this carefully worded sentence: "Beyond the outer planets is the Kuiper Belt of comets, a disk of small, icy worlds including Pluto."

A diagram of the planets shows eight, not nine, rings around the Sun.

Answer 3

Pluto
Pluto, the last planet to join the heavenly pantheon, became the first to leave it. The status of Pluto had been under discussion for some time, but with the discovery of 2003 UB313, nicknamed Xena, the question became acute, for it seemingly had as much right as Pluto to be called a planet.

On August 24, 2006, the International Astronomical Union surprised the world by voting in a new definition of planet, one that would exclude Pluto and bring the total number down to eight. (There had previously been been strong speculation that the redefinition would bring the total up to 12 instead of down.)

Pluto was instead classified as a dwarf planet, along with Xena and Ceres. The main difference between a dwarf planet and the real thing is that the dwarf variety has not cleared the area of its orbital path.

This redefinition met with a wave of protests from those who wanted to see the ninth planet grandfathered in, including but not limited to supporters of the late Clyde Tombaugh, who discovered Pluto in 1930. His widow, however, said he would have been accepting of the IAU's decision since "he was a scientist" and understood that astronomers had to take into account newly discovered objects in the Kuiper Belt (where Pluto is located).

But opponents of Pluto's demotion remain unconsoled and have generated a thriving industry in T-shirts, mugs and other memorabilia. Among the many slogans of this movement was one which played on the mnemonic for the names of the erstwhile nine:

"My! Very educated morons just screwed up numerous planetariums."

Answer 4

Pluto is a dwarf planet! True its so small (about fifth the mass of the Moon)
It was discovered by Clyde Tombaugh in 1930 and was considered the ninth planet from the Sun.
Last August, the International Astronomical Union redefined the term "planet", and classified Pluto as a dwarf planet.
I read in the newspapers that Tombaugh's widow is upset!
Her late husband may have been disappointed with the change since he had resisted attempts to remove Pluto's planetary status in his lifetime, he would have accepted the decision now if he was alive.

Answer 5

The reason that Pluto was excluded is that it's just one Kuiper Belt Object (KBO) of many that we've now seen. Either there are eight planets or there are more (probably a lot more) than nine. Nine is not logical no matter what. It's not fair to favor Pluto over other KBOs, some of which are probably larger. And it's better to treat KBOs like asteroids, which are also not considered planets. That way we have eight well defined planets, thousands of asteroids, and thousands of KBOs, instead of trying to pick some special asteroids and some special KBOs out and call them planets. What could make them special, that people wold not argue endlessly about?

Answer 6

No, Pluto is not a planet any longer. (tear falls) A bunch of smart people came together and decided (finally) some rules on for what something needs to be/have to be a planet. Pluto is not a planet anymore only because its orbit crosses another planet.

Answer 7

Hi. I found out that the scientists in that discussion you mentioned decided that "for a celestial body to qualify as a planet:
it must be in orbit around the Sun
it must be large enough that it takes on a nearly round shape
it has cleared its orbit of other objects"
So in the end Pluto was disqualified because" its highly elliptical orbit overlaps with that of Neptune". Now it's just part of a new category of dwarf planets.
Pity, really, what will Donald think?

Answer 8

Pluto wasn't Obese enough 2 B counted by American Scientists 2 B considered a Planet anymore.
Poor Pluto!
:(

Answer 9

No - they downgraded it to a 'dwarf planet' :(
They said that it was too small, it didn't have a propper orbit (because occasionaly it crossed Neptune's orbit) and There are bigger objects in the Kuiper belt.

The criteria for a planet is now:
It must be in orbit around the Sun,
It must be large enough that it takes on a nearly round shape,
It has cleared its orbit of other objects

Answer 10

They decided last week in Prague that it should be downgraded to dwarf planet as it only fills 3 of the 4 criteria it takes to make the planet list