classification of Pluto?

Question

can someone tell me why there is controversy about the classification of pluto

Answer 1

Pluto is no more a planet! it is said that Pluto went into the orbit of Neptune's and lost all its gases like helium and hydrogen which resulted it to turn into a wife dwarf.

Answer 2

Well for starters, Pluto is just too small. In the neighborhood where Pluto lives? Planets are supposed to be huge. The Jovian planets, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune are 20 to 300 times the size of the Earth, and Pluto is really small compared to the Earth, smaller than our Moon. Kind of stands out.

And Pluto is not made out the same material as the Jovians. The large planets are mostly gigantic spheres of gas, mostly hydrogen and helium. Likely there are no solid surfaces, only denser and denser gas all the way in. Pluto is a small solid world of methane, water, carbon dioxide and ammonia ices, maybe a little rock and with a just hint of atmosphere (that freezes out and falls as snow in her "winter").

And third, Pluto's orbit is the most eccentric (oval shaped) and the most tilted to the plane that the rest of the planets orbit in. Also, Pluto is locked in a resonance with Neptune's orbit and comes closer to the sun than Neptune sometimes.

There were theories that Pluto was a lost moon of Neptune but that was before we discovered she a has one large moon (Charon) half her size (pretty much, this system is a double planet) and recently two other teeny-tiney moons.

Pluto seems like she cant be an ejected moon-she must have formed on her own and seems to be part of an entire army of small icey-dwarf objects that circle just outside Neptune's orbit in what is known as the Kuiper belt. We have no idea of how many or how large these objects may be. NOT "planets" proper, hence the new term "dwarf planet" where Pluto is king.

BUT I still think Pluto should be called a planet because of historical reasons (discovered by an American, financed by Percival Lowell, Tombaugh's life story, etc).

Answer 3

pluto is not a "white dwarf", it's a "dwarf planet", which basically just means it's a very small planet. white dwarf is formed from a star (for example, our Sun is a star), it's usually about the size of the Earth but about the same mass as our Sun, and so if pluto is a white dwarf, we would definitely know because all the planets in the solar system would be orbiting around pluto due to its density.

Answer 4

During Aug. 24, 2006 in Prague, Czech Republic. The IAU ( international astronomical union ) was Formed. 2,500 astronomers from 75 different countries defined the word planet.

"Planet"

1. orbits around the sun
2. large enough to assume a nearly round shape
3. clears its orbit from other objects.

Since the orbit of Pluto passes to the orbit of Neptune, it didn't fit for the third meaning.

so Pluto became a dwarf planet along with:

1.xena
2.ceres
3. pluto

Answer 5

It is not it's size that caused it be reclassified. It is because it has not cleared the neighborhood of it's orbit. Basically it doesn't exert sufficient gravitational superiority over the area around it's orbit, so it's not considered a full fledged planet. Incidentially, it is it's small size that is partially responsible for this, but it's size is not what altered its classification.

Answer 6

Well, I could say that your question is outdated. Pluto was a planet, but because of its small size, it was voted by astromomers to be of another classification, called a "dwarf planet"

Answer 7

pluto has been demoted to a drawf planet, although I still consider it a planet. Its one of the original nine

Answer 8

It's not big enough to be called a planet in scientific terms.That's why they have changed it to dwarf planet now.