Pluto...not a planet....but a huge chunk of ice ?

Question

are they going to change all the school books now to 8 planets in our solar system ?

Answer 1

Yes your school books will change. There now only 8 known planets in our solar system, along with 3 dwarf planets.

The reason for the change was the discovery in 2005 of Eris, which lies just beyond the Kuiper Belt. Eris was measured by the hubble Telescope, and was found to be bigger than Pluto. It was originally referred to as the tenth planet, but after a redefining of the term "Planet" in 2006, Eris, Pluto and Ceres were reclassified as "dwarf planets"

The main reason for the reclassification is that because of the small size of these dwarf planets, they do not possess the necessary gravity to attract all the matter in it's vicinity. The areas around these bodies are littered with smaller objects that have not been drawn to the dwarf planets.

Answer 2

Pluto is still considered a "dwarf planet", along with what was once considered its moon (Charon), another far off celestial body that hasn't been given an official name and I believe Ceres, which was previously considered/may still be considered the largest known asteroid.

I believe the law is that science textbooks must be replaced every five years because there are so many advances in that time. So very soon you will find no mention of Pluto as a "Planet", only as a "dwarf planet. So stick to the mnemonics that had Pluto as "period" and you'll still get a complete sentence.

Answer 3

I bet so, even tho there is great fight about it. Naming Pluto as a Dwarf Planet has been described as a politic move by some researchers. Infact when defining a planet, there are 3 conditions that must be assured. Pluto only fails one of those, so many astronomenrs argue the decision of Planetary Society to exclude pluto from the planet count.

Answer 4

Pluto is an Oort Cloud object. You can call it an asteroid or just a rock.
It is too small to be categorized as a planet. Recent words that are going to show up in the new dictionaries include Plutoed, as it means...

Being excluded as a group; alienized or ignored.

If you miss Pluto, well that's too bad. I kinda miss the dwarf, too.

Answer 5

I am pretty sure that when new editions of text books come out, they will state that there are eight planets because recently they have deemed Pluto as a big rock instead of a planet.

Answer 6

Last I heard, they found a "10th" planet" before demoting Pluto. The working title was "Xena" but am not sure if they've redesignated it.

I'll miss Pluto as a planet. It'll always be welcome in my own personal solar system. The bunch of uber-nerds who reclassified it were probably just out to make a mark for themselves, I hope a football team wandered into their lab and punched the whole lot silly............

Answer 7

Sad to say, yes. But its not a chunk of ice because it doesn't mean that pluto is far from the sun, its ice.

Answer 8

The textbooks may change but I am sure the Scorpio’s are going to hold tight to their piece of rock rather then share Mars with Aries folks again.

We can’t disregard the God of the Underworld and milestone to major social changes. Think about Persephone (:

Answer 9

Aww, such a shame that Pluto is now gone... -tear-
I am going to miss that little block of floating ice.
It was my second favorite planet too after Saturn!

Answer 10

Ya Its far from the sun so it got cold and became ice poor pluto..