is pluto a planet?

Question

ok..
sooo is pluto a planet or not?
Cuz katie is soo confused..
help her:)

Answer 1

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

on 24 august 2006, the international astronomical union reclassified pluto.

http://www.iau.org/fileadmin/content/pdfs/Resolution_GA26-5-6.pdf

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.

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.

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

Ok, so you have pluto and it was a planet. Now according to some high ranking astronomers, it is not to be classed as a planet, and here is why.

According to my understanding of the definition, a planet has to have cleared the area of its orbit of most debris. Pluto is actually right within an outer asteroid belt, and thus is not a planet.

However it has been re-classified as a dwarf planet, like ceres and eris (between neptune and pluto, and actually bigger than pluto), and many other space objects discovered.

So Pluto is not a planet, rather it is a dwarf planet that got promoted many years earlier by media hype and public fascination.

Answer 3

The International Astronomical Association had a meeting last year where they voted that Pluto was no longer a planet because its orbit overlaps that of Neptune. Also they have been finding a lot of objects out there in the Kuiper Belt that are similar to Pluto, so instead of adding all those as planets, they demoted Pluto to "Dwarf Planet" status. The status of Pluto is still up to debate though, as they will meet again in a few years to take another vote. What do you think? Gather the information yourself and come to your own decision. Don't rely on the bias of a select group of astronomers.

Answer 4

No. On August 24, 2006 the IAU redefined the term "planet", and classified Pluto, Ceres, and Eris as dwarf planets.[1] Pluto is also classified as the prototype of a family of trans-Neptunian objects.[2][3] After the reclassification, Pluto was added to the list of minor planets and given the number 134340.[4][5]

Answer 5

Not according to the new definition of planet named by the international astronomical union (IAU) ON August 24, 2006 they decided to change the definition of planet to this which apparently does not include pluto :
is in orbit around the Sun,
has sufficient mass so that it assumes a hydrostatic equilibrium (nearly round) shape, and
has "cleared the neighborhood" around its orbit.
I myself disagree with this demotion, i wish they would have left it teh way it was, but we don't have any say in it. So for now, no pluto is no longer a planet.

Answer 6

Was a planet. Pluto describes a really big ball of ice.

Answer 7

it WAS a planet. but then they stripped it of its planet status because if was too small, along with a couple other characteristics. its sad, poor pluto. =[.

Answer 8

not any more!
Pluto has been stripped of its status, meaning that only eight classical planets are now in existence.

Answer 9

Not anymore. As of earlier this year, it is no longer a planet

Answer 10

No. According to scientists it's not. It is considered a sub-planet.