List reasons why Pluto might not be a planet?

Question

Please list as many reasons as possible, this is for a school project. List your theories, why could Pluto be a Planet or perhaps a comet or anything else. Do you know anything that might say whether or not Pluto is orbiting Charon or not ? ETC

Answer 1

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

on 24 august 2006, the international astronomical union voted to reclassify pluto as a "dwarf planet", but 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.

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.

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.

incidentally, "134340 pluto" was never a moon of neptune. neptune did capture triton. this is why triton has a retrograde orbit. "134340 pluto" is also larger than the largest asteroid, "1 ceres".

Answer 2

It is only in recent years that astronomers have gotten so fussy about what is and is not a planet. The word planet came from the Greek and meant wanderer, or a wandering star, a point of light that didn't stay in the same place every night like the other stars. If you use that definition, all the planets, Pluto and all the asteroids fit the bill and are all planets. Recently the discussion has focused on a more definitive meaning because of the discovery of the Kuiper Belt objects and planets around other stars. Science is like that, it takes a subect and begins to break it down into smaller and smaller groups so that everything has a better definition. Pluto is a planet as far as I'm concerned, whose going to sue me over that? Jupiter is a big fat ball of gas that could technically be classified as a small brown dwarf star, but its still a planet. Don't worry about it unless its on your science test next week, that's the only time you need to memorize the answer your teacher wants.

Answer 3

The Fresh Prince's answer is right on the money except for that last statement which says that a planet should not revolve around anything other than a star. If that were true, Earth would not be a planet since it and its moon revolve around each other.

The main reason Pluto has been ejected from the clan of planets is that the center of gravity shared between Pluto and Charon, its moon, is between the two. All other plantes share a center of gravity with their moons, but that shared center of gravity is beneath the surface of the planet. I know - it sounds goofy, but that really is the reason that was used.

Answer 4

The main reason is because Pluto and Charon revolve about each other as they revolve about the sun. Well, they don't really revolve around each other, but Charon revolves about Pluto and Charon's gravitational pull makes Pluto revolve about a point between the two bodies. A planet shouldn't be revolving about anything other than a star.

Mandy, the orbit of every planet is an ellipse. I believe it was Kepler that proved that.

Answer 5

Pluto is a part of the kepler belt which has many giant bodies revolving around the sun. Moreover it's orbit is not similar to that of the other planets & is made up of ice & not gases & solid material. If pluto is considered as a planet then all the other bodies in kepler belt will have to be considered as planets & this isn't possible.
Search about keper belt & pluto in the encyclopaedias & encarta's latest version.

Answer 6

I think that the main reson they decided to make pluto not a planet any more was because they discovered so many other bodies out there that were just like pluto. So they either change one planet to an asteroid, or change hundereds of other things into planets

Answer 7

Pluto is smaller than our Moon.

It is not in a perfect orbit, but wanders a lot and can even be in orbital path of neptune (I believe its called, the planet before pluto..forget its name).

It is mostly the density of an asteroid, though it has a small "moon" or rock orbiting it, but any heavy body can do that, so pluto must be made of iron or some other heavy metal.

I wish you well..

Jesse

Answer 8

it's the only "outer planet" that's not a gas giant.. it's too small.. it has a weird orbit.. there are other objects in the keiper belt that are larger than pluto..

if you ask me they're making too big a deal out of this whole name thing.. it is what it is, regardless of what whether we call it a planet or a dwarf planet or an asteroid..

Answer 9

I just think that it would be sad if pluto got to be renamed an honorary planet because all of us ingnorant people are sad about its demotion. If the popular voe gave pluto its planet title back, then that would be just cause for all of our advancements to get thrown back into the dark ages.

Answer 10

it may be 13 planets (you counted Pluto the two as a planet and dwarf planet). however the element is, there may be greater dwarf planets to be got here across, so the selection will shop icreasing. i will see why the astronomers desperate to entice the line at Neptune. previous Neptune lies component of many Pluto-sized gadgets that are quite the "left-overs" from the formation of the image voltaic gadget.