planets?????

Question

Do we believe there are nine planets in our solar system because we know there are or because that's all we've been able to find so far?

Answer 1

We accept that because that's what we have found so far. Most astronomers would be open to the possibility that the solar system could have more planets.

There is an ongoing dispute about the status of Pluto. For decades it was considered a planet, but in recent months some astronomers have decided it isn't one. Personally, I prefer to consider it one.

In addition to planets the solar system also has such orbiting matter as comets and asteroids.


Pluto, whatever it is, is a binary body, sharing its orbit with Charon, thought to be its moon when Pluto was considered to be a planet.

Some of the moons of Jupiter and Saturn are nearly big enough to be planets.

Answer 2

Well, the debate over how many planets are in our solar system has been a hot topic over the past few years. The traditional answer has always been "nine", until some scientists questioned whether or not Pluto should be considered a planet due to it's small size.

http://en.wikinews.org/wiki/Pluto_loses_planet_status

The above link shows the criteria for a planet.

1) must be in orbit around a star (the sun).
2) has sufficient mass to become nearly round in shape, and not ovoid or other shapes like certain asteroids.
3) has cleared the area around it's orbit (it dominates it's orbit and no other heavenly bodies exist in it's particular path)
4) is not a sattelite (either natural or man made).

Pluto failed to meet one of these criteria and was reclassified as a Dwarf Planet.

As to the main question, all we have found thus far is eight planets that meet the criteria to fit the label "Planet" with several others in the near future being labeled "Dwarf Planets".

On a side note, there have been over 200 planets discovered throughout the galaxy so far with about 12 or more being discovered every month. The smallest of which is about 5 times the size of earth.

Answer 3

Because that is what we have been able to find so far. If there are more, they must be really far from the Sun, way out past Pluto, because anything big enough to be a planet and not just an asteroid would be glaringly obvious if it were closer to the Sun than Pluto is.

Answer 4

i believe our solar system has only 8 (the ones we know of). The others that are the size of pluto and stuff, i dont think are planets, just clumps of large matter that happened to be round and bigger than the ones surrounding them. Also if solar systems are formed how we think it would be impossible for larger planets to form beyond Neptune because of the spinning of the creation disk and other stuff.

Answer 5

Anything further out from Pluto is unlikely to fit the new "definition" of planet.

I think the idea of "classifying" planets is stupid anyway. There are asteroids out there that are large enough to be almost perfectly spherical, like Ceres. They should have just promoted Ceres instead of demoting Pluto. And like Warren said, there are moons around the gas giants that are extremely large. For example Ganymede (which orbits Jupiter) is larger than the planet Mercury.

Answer 6

Our solar system has 8 planets. There can't be any other bodies in the solar system that fit the definition of planet - we know the space between us and the Kuiper belt well, and nothing in the Kuiper belt fits the 'cleared it's orbit' part of the planet definition.

Answer 7

We didn't just randomly choose nine planets. Astronomers began finding and discovering the planets by following (lately) strict checklist type characteristics. Pluto, of course I'm sure you have heard, has been stripped of it's name (for the lack of respect and honor by the scientists) lol.... but you can google the planets and it will tell you the history of which astronomer and philosiphors discovered the planets.

Answer 8

out of the nine planets the outer most planet pluto is considered a asteroid caught up in a orbit around our sun

Answer 9

Technically we only have 8 planets Pluto was downed to dwarf planet. Anyway we have many different celestial bodies out there it might be possible that they're possible planets we haven't found yet

Answer 10

That is as far as human could reach but nobody really knows whats out there. Some says that there are billions of stars in the universe and there also billions of universe. We aint seen nothing yet!

God is big! Psalm 19 says the heavens declare the glory of God,