since 1 planet was scrapped away? are we going to see planet earth being demoted or done away with?

Answer 1

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

no, of course not. this was the right thing to do, believe me. this does not change anything about pluto or the solar system. this just corrects the mistake of classifying pluto as a planet initially.


pluto does orbit the sun, is ball-shaped and is not a satellite, but it does not have an isolated orbit (a bunch of other similar bodies have similar orbits.) so it is not a planet.

i have been waiting for this since i was about ten when i learned 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. i feel somewhat satisfied, but i don't know how long this will drag on tho. many planetary astronomers are satisfied that the definition is rigorous enuf. i can accept that the definition is flawed, but i can not accept that "134340 pluto" is a planet.


this same thing happened has happened before. in 1800, an astronomer found a body orbiting the sun between the orbits of mars and jupiter and thought it was a planet. astronomers finally stopped classifying them as planets after they found several other bodies with similar orbits, and no one thinks ceres, pallas, juno, and vesta are planets today.

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

incidentally, "134340 pluto" was never a moon of neptune. neptune did capture triton. this is why triton has a retrograde orbit

Answer 2

No, we won't. It was Pluto that was "demoted", and that's because astronomers found other asteroids that were even bigger than it was, and not very far away either! The remaining 8 planets, as far as comic order goes, are here to stay; they're the closest and biggest ones near Earth, and they'll always remain.

The word "planet" is now defined as:
A body that orbits the sun, that is not a satellite (moon), that is big enough for its own gravity to keep it round-shaped, and is big enough to dominate its orbit.
That last part simply means it can't be just a bigger-than-average asteroid in an asteroid belt... Which is what Pluto turned out to be. It resides in the Kuiper belt, a belt of asteroids and debris outside the orbit of Neptune.
Now as far as I know, Earth falls into each of those categories!

Answer 3

The term "planet" is a label to describe celestial bodies that are not distant suns, but rather more like the earth.

therefore, the Earth will always be a planet, no matter what planetary bodies are discovered.

Earth is the baseline that we use as a reference to compare.

Answer 4

no iut can not, pluto was demoted due to its size it was not even bigger than our moon, next pluto had a messed up orbit every 20 years it switched places with neptune, lastly it is from the krupir belt and is made of entirly ice, All the other planets are made from gas or rock.

Answer 5

I think everyone over the age of 18 has to repeat science now.