What is a theory for Pluto's being in the solar system?

Question

I need to know what is Pluto's story in the solar system is for Science class

Answer 1

divide up the Solar Sytem into sections.

from the inside out:

1) Sun
2) Terrestrial Planets (rocky warm worlds like Earth)
3) Jovian Planets (gas giants, cold and ... well, gassy)
4) Kuiper Belt objects (ice and rock)
5) Oort Cloud (comets and other junk)

Pluto is a piece of ice and rock that wandered out of the Kuiper Belt and got caught in a gravitational resonance with Neptune. Because its pretty big and bright (for a chunk o rock), it was IDed as a planet, but really doesnt qualify. Kinda like calling an ATV a car, just cause it has 4 wheels.

Look up gravitational resonances... they occur all throughout the solar system and are pretty interesting.

Answer 2

With a density about twice that of water, Pluto is apparently made of a much greater proportion of rockier material than are the giant planets of the outer solar system. This may be the result of the kind of chemical reactions that took place during the formation of the planet under cold temperatures and low pressure. Many astronomers think Pluto was growing rapidly to be a larger planet when Neptune’s gravitational influence disturbed the region where Pluto orbits (the Kuiper Belt), stopping the process of planetary growth there. The Kuiper Belt is a ring of material orbiting the Sun beyond the planet Neptune that contains millions of rocky, icy objects like Pluto and Charon. Charon could be an accumulation of the lighter materials resulting from a collision between Pluto and another large Kuiper Belt Object (KBO) in the ancient past.

Answer 3

Pluto is just one more Kuiper Belt object that formed when the solar system formed. It (along with the other KBOs and the asteroids in the main asteroid belt) didn't coalesce into a single planet, but remained as planetesimals.

The reason the KBOs didn't form a single planet is theorized to be due to Neptune's gravitational effect on the region (preventing the planetesimals from approaching each other and merging) and from the gravity of nearby stars (remember, this was 4 billion years ago and there were stars nearer to the sun at that time than now).

The asteroids didn't form a single planet because of Jupiter's gravitational effect on the region (preventing the small objects from merging).

Answer 4

Hi. Pluto and its moon may have had their orbits disturbed by one of the gas giants and got captured in its strange orbit.

Answer 5

I think its now considered just a big giant rock and has not formed into a circular ball like a planet...

Answer 6

idk what you mean by that, but pluto used to be a planet, now scientists say it isn't, because its not big enough