pluto is not a planet?

Question

why is pluto a dwarf planet now?
what does dwarg mean?

Answer 1

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pluto

yes, pluto is not a planet. pluto does orbit the sun, is ball-shaped, does not have an isolated orbit (a bunch of other similar bodies have similar orbits.), and is not a satellite so it is not a planet. this does not change anything about the solar system or pluto. it just corrects the mistake of classifying pluto as a planet initially. i don't know how long this will drag on tho. many planetary astronomers are not satisfied that the definition is rigorous enuf. i can accept that the definition is flawed, but i can not accept that pluto is a planet.

many astronomers consider pluto and charon to be a binary system, but two small bodies orbit that system. they are called nix and hydra.

i have been waiting for this since i was about twelve. i feel somewhat satisfied. i knew that pluto didn't fit the pattern set by the major bodies in the solar system so it was an anomaly. it just felt "out of place". now that astronomers have found hundreds of other bodies with similar orbits, classifying "134340 pluto" as a planet is even more irrational. this was the right thing to do, believe me.

incidental, "134340 pluto" was never a moon of neptune. neptune did capture triton. this is why triton has a retrograde orbit.also, "13199 eris" is about five percent bigger than "134340 pluto".

Answer 2

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 Ceres and the aforementioned Xena. 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).

Answer 3

The International Astronomical Union created a new definition of planet in 2006, which requires that a planet clear the neighborhood of its orbit in addition to having a stable shape due to hydrostatic equilibrium. An otherwise planetary object that fails the orbital criterion is instead a dwarf planet. Dwarf just means small. Since Pluto's orbital period is dominated by a resonance with Neptune, and it shares its region of space with many other similar objects, it does not fulfil this requirement of the definition of planet.

Answer 4

As I understand it, there are acually dozens (maybe hundreds) of rocks about the same size as Pluto in a big ring at the edge of our solar system. Pluto happens to be one of them. I guess one of the first clues that Pluto isn't a normal planet like the "rest of them" was that Pluto's orbit was all screwed up, and it actually crossed over Neptune's orbit in places. If Pluto were to stay a planet, then all those other rocks would have to be planets, too.

Answer 5

Pluto has become a Dwarf Planet along with a few asteroids that also fit this qualification because it is no longer considered large enough to be an actual planet.
(The asteroids are dwarf planets now because they are big enough to be dwarf planets)

Answer 6

Dwarf means small. So Pluto is not technically a planet any more it has been lets say demoted to a smaller category

Answer 7

Its to small and ever since the definition of a planet was changed, Pluto wasn't considered a planet.

Answer 8

Dwarf Planet
(a) is in orbit around the Sun;
(b) has sufficient mass for its self-gravity to overcome rigid body forces so that it assumes a hydrostatic equilibrium (nearly round) shape;
(c) has not "cleared the neighbourhood" around its orbit; and (there is a lot of debris in/near Plutos orbit)
(d) is not a satellite

Answer 9

i don't know what dwarg means, but Pluto does not have the characteristics of a planet, therefore, its not a planet.

Answer 10

Because Pluto is generally small.
And sucks as a planet.
It has a dodgy orbit too.
Hell, there's a few other dwarf planets which were bigger than it before it was declassified this Summer.