Poll: Pluto will always be a planet to me...Yes or No?

Question

LET THE DEBATE BEGIN

Answer 1

Wow! I grew up leafing through astronomy picture books and looking at the erratic orbit of Pluto and the extreme distance compared to other planets. Imagining how small the sun looked from Pluto, it's low gravity, it's icy surface. One book imagined what aliens would look like given the characteristics of each planet. Pluto had long delicately legged beasts with blades for feet in order to sail across the ice in the low gravity environment. Pluto was so odd, I had to make an effort to believe it was a planet all my life.

Now, it's obvious that it can not be counted as a planet. The definition of a planet would fall apart if Pluto and all of the other small ice chunks were to be considered planets. It is now almost as silly as considering asteroids planets. There are just so many of them that it would overwhelm the utility of the word to classify them as planets.

But. . . the nostalgia, the wistful remembrance, the effort to believe, the faith that it took to believe in Pluto's status as a planet for so many years can't simply be abandoned because a rational decision was made by men of science. Pluto is like a 90 year old grandmother. She may be old and wrinkled as an orange. But to grandpa, she will always be the most beautiful woman in the room, the girl he first saw walking down a hill on a windy day on some far away island. He knows her vulnerabilities and immaturities. What others see as old habits, he still sees as playful eccentricities. What others see as wrinkles, he sees as the light in her eyes when she smiles. He even imagines her to be a little girl that he has, in some way, taken care of all his life (just as she imagines herself having done for him). He may agree that she should no longer drive a car. But she will always be the most beautiful woman in the world to him.

And so, for me, Pluto will always be a planet (even though I can agree that the astronomers were right in making their decision).

Answer 2

I thought Pluto was always a planet and I still do. Just because they recently declared that Pluto is no longer a planet, that doesn't mean much, since Pluto was considered a planet for well, pretty much ever. I get annoyed some what when people correct me when I say that Pluto is my favorite planet. I mean, when I was in elementary school Pluto was even my favorite planet and forever that will stay. For example: Let's say that your favorite band was Nirvana, but they are no longer considered a band because Kurt Cobain passes away. So uhm, what...? Now you can't have Nirvana be your favorite band now? I don't know if my point me making much sense, but I think you get the picture.

Answer 3

At first it was a shock when Pluto's status as the 9th planet was voted away by the IAU. For all my 50+ years of life I was taught and read that there were 9 planets, Pluto being the last. But as I thought about the arguments for and against, I changed my mind. Why be upset just because I had always thought of it as a planet? Was it just a resistance to change?

So, I vote "no" to keeping Pluto as a planet because I agree with the professional astronomers who voted to demote it to a dwarf planet. Pluto is smaller than our moon, is in a highly unusual orbit (at times it is closer to the sun than Neptune), is highly inclined to the ecliptic and there are many more objects near its size or bigger in the Kuiper Belt.

Isn't science all about change and growth in our ideas about the universe?

Answer 4

"Once known as the smallest, coldest, and most distant planet from the Sun, Pluto has a dual identity, not to mention being enshrouded in controversy since its discovery in 1930. On August 24, 2006, the International Astronomical Union (IAU) formally downgraded Pluto from an official planet to a dwarf planet. According to the new rules a planet meets three criteria: it must orbit the Sun, it must be big enough for gravity to squash it into a round ball, and it must have cleared other things out of the way in its orbital neighborhood. The latter measure knocks out Pluto and 2003UB313 (Eris), which orbit among the icy wrecks of the Kuiper Belt, and Ceres, which is in the asteroid belt.

(1) A "planet" is a celestial body that (a) is in orbit around the Sun, (b) has sufficient mass for its self-gravity to overcome rigid body forces so that it assumes a hydrostatic equilibrium (nearly round) shape, and (c) has cleared the neighborhood around its orbit.

(2) A "dwarf planet" is a celestial body that (a) is in orbit around the Sun, (b) has sufficient mass for its self-gravity to overcome rigid body forces so that it assumes a hydrostatic equilibrium (nearly round) shape, (c) has not cleared the neighborhood around its orbit, and (d) is not a satellite.

(3) All other objects except satellites orbiting the Sun shall be referred to collectively as "Small Solar-System Bodies".



Discovered by American astronomer Clyde Tombaugh in 1930, Pluto takes 248 years to orbit the Sun. Pluto's most recent close approach to the Sun was in 1989. Between 1979 and 1999, Pluto's highly elliptical orbit brought it closer to the Sun than Neptune, providing rare opportunities to study this small, cold, distant world and its companion moon, Charon.

Most of what we know about Pluto we have learned since the late 1970s from Earth-based observations, the Infrared Astronomical Satellite (IRAS), and the Hubble Space Telescope. Many of the key questions about Pluto, Charon, and the outer fringes of our solar system await close-up observations by a robotic space flight mission.

No spacecraft have yet visited Pluto. However, NASA launched a mission called New Horizons that will explore both Pluto and the Kuiper Belt region."

Pluto is still a planet--it's just not an official one (a "dwarf," many say). Yes, books will have to be revised, and schools will have to change their curricula, but they're supposed to do that, anyway.

Answer 5

No. What's the big deal? Astronomers have changed the status of planets before. When the first asteroid was discovered it was thought to be a new planet, then they started finding lots more and they were put into a new category.

Answer 6

Pluto is Pluto. I'll always think of it as a planet, but above all it remains Pluto, doesn't matter what its title is.

Answer 7

No.

I would love it to be because the guy who discovered it was born in the state I live in but it just doesn't have the characteristic of a planet.

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

Click these to learn why Pluto isn't a planet

Answer 8

come on,,, its the famous PLUTO. We will never forget it. Its in our brain since we started school. No matter what everyone says, its a planet or not, I will never forget PLUTO. I love Pluto,

Answer 9

Yes.

Answer 10

Yes!

..either the planet or the Disney dog