why, oh why did they have to demote pluto?

Answer 1

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

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, and it never was. 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 was discovered during a search for something that does not exist: a planet orbiting the sun beyond neptune. pluto just happened to be where he was searching for this hypothetical planet. astronomers soon realized that pluto was not massive enuff to what they were looking for.

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. one of these, "136199 eris", is about five percent bigger than "134340 pluto".

i feel somewhat satisfied, but i don't know how long this will drag on tho. many planetary astronomers are not satisfied that the definition is rigorous enuff. 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 in about 1850 after they found several other bodies with similar orbits, and no one thinks ceres, pallas, juno, and vesta are planets today.

incidentally, "134340 pluto" was never a moon of neptune. neptune did capture triton. this is why triton has a retrograde orbit. many astronomers consider pluto and charon to be a binary system, but two small bodies orbit that system. they are called nix and hydra.

Answer 2

What classifies anything as a planet in the first place?

A planet, as defined by the International Astronomical Union (IAU), is a celestial body orbiting a star or stellar remnant that is massive enough to be rounded by its own gravity, not massive enough to cause thermonuclear fusion in its core, and has cleared its neighbouring region of planetesimals.


They really don't know much about pluto, it is so small and so cold. The atmosphere is said to be frozen. It may not even be spherical. A large group of astronomers gathered and decided that pluto should not be classified as a planet. The instead classified it as a dwarf planet due to its size. All the major planets in the solar systems have moons orbiting them, pluto does not. Ceres and Eris were classified as dwarfs as well.

Answer 3

Oh, why this fuss about Pluto? It's just an icy rock half the diameter of the moon floating around in a weird orbit. Unless you have an extrremely good telescope, you can't see it. Heck, I don't even see it as a demotion - instead to being our most eccentric planet, it is now one of the largest Kuiper Belt Objects, which makes it more significant.

Answer 4

Chasing cars & chewing on Mickey's slippers.

On August 24, 2006 the IAU defined the term "planet" for the first time. This definition excluded Pluto from planethood, and reclassified it under the new category of dwarf planet along with Eris and Ceres.[6] After the reclassification, Pluto was added to the list of minor planets and given the number 134340.[7]

Answer 5

Because they recently discovered it is much smaller than once believed. It is smaller than the Moon. If everything smaller than the Moon has to be a planet, we would have to call all the asteroids planets too, and nobody wanted to do that. In fact the first 3 asteroids discovered WERE once called planets, but when we found thousands more and discovered how small they are, they were demoted to "asteroid". That happened in the 1800s, so nobody remembers that today. 100 years in the future nobody will remember Pluto was once considered a planet.

Answer 6

I saw long ago, Carl sagan on TV, ´n he said pluto was as big
as our moon, so, as big as an asteroid. And ´though not very
sure, I think he also said it was having a twin planet, ´n both
were surrounding each other, like in a "primary" translation,
(the secondary would be around the sun), and hence, pluto ´n
its "mate" were no longer a planet, but a binary planet. But that was long ago, I don´t remember too well. Try to know more about binary planets. I see I´ll have to do it myself to be updated.

Answer 7

Because a bunch of old men are getting old and they want earth to be more special, they discovered a 10th planet, then took two away. The solar system was getting bigger, making earth smaller. Earth is insignificant in the grand scale of things, Carl Sagan called earth a pale blue dot, And that's all it is. A little speck of sand floating in space.

Answer 8

it's a big pile of hooey, first of all they say it's not a planet, they call it a dwrf planet, so does that mean a person that is a dwarf if not a person, second they gave a big plie of junk about atmosphere, and the fact that it's affected by neptunes orbit,, meaning that it doesn't have its own orbit, i say junk, bah humbug and nine planets are cooler than eight but leave it to scientist to not factor in things that are just cool

Answer 9

well they sorta find out thats iut is too small to be a planet so its very sad ;( kidding well anyway happy to help VDC

Answer 10

Because it's just a big snowball.