I missed this piece of info, Why isn't Pluto a planet?

Answer 1

some dude in some observatory thought it was too small. they also found a large object which was a little less than Pluto sized just outside of its orbit, and decided it must be an asteroid, and since it was so similar to Pluto, they just reclassified Pluto. Personally, i think its sad and signist.... im a scorpio and i want my planet back!

Answer 2

It is a planet, but a "dwarf" planet.

I don't see why they felt the necessity to do this considering that size is size no matter the position.

The rationale is this. In order to be a proper "planet" a body must be a certain size and "dominate" the gravitational area of its orbit.

What they find is that there are a number of other bodies in Pluto's orbit that are similar to it, so therefore it's not a "Planet". I find the argument a little lame. Since when does a body's reference to its neighbors affect the fact that it's a certain size?

In my opinion, a planet is a planet due to size only. It should be classified a major body if it dominates the orbit. A planetary body should then be a satellite if and only if it revolves around another body. Therefore all planetary bodies are satellite to the sun, and the satellites of the planets are satellite to both. More logical in my opinion.

So because we now have dwarf planets we should know that there are more than 9 planets. But don't remove Pluto!

Answer 3

I guess they say it's to small To be a planet. I wouldn't worry to much. They have been classifying and reclassifying Pluto and its status of a planet or something else in space for a long time.

I guess it is a frequent thing. According to my science teacher from college this is the 3rd or 4th time they have reclassified Pluto. Sucks doesn't it? I always liked Pluto because it was the easiest (besides Earth) to remember. All I had to do was think of Mickey Mouse and his best pal!

Answer 4

They decided a while back that it was probably a giant asteroid, with a "moon" near it that might have been a rock from the same inception. They suspected that pluto was made a planet because there was not access to the sophisticated equipment available today.

Answer 5

the asteroid belt is a bunch of junk. If there was a planet in that mess, many of the asteroids orbits would be cleared off or absorbed into the planet.

pluto is in an orbit with a bunch of junk. It hasn't enough mass to make a dent in all of it, in fact its in resonance with Neptune itself, sorta... loosely sorta... like its a moon of Neptune that just hasnt quite the right orbit to actually be orbiting Neptune.

ANYWAY... because Pluto won't clear the debris out of its orbit, its not considered a real planet.

Look at the link and check out just how much more junk is in Pluto's orbit than is Saturn's, Uranus's or Neptune's.

Answer 6

For the same reason that Pallas is no longer a planet (since the mid-1800s) and Ganymede is no longer a planet (since the mid-1600s).

Many words in our language (specially in science) come from Classical Greek and Latin.

Aster means star (the word disaster meant "bad star" as in bad omen). For the early astronomers, the word described anything that was in the heavens (above the imperfect earthly world which included the atmosphere).

Some stars were moving: they were "wandering stars" = aster planetes.
Seven were known: Sun, Moon, Mercury, Venus*, Mars, Jupiter and Saturn. Of course, the Greeks used their Greek names; Helios, Selene, Hermes, Aphrodite, Ares, Zeus and Chronos.

* Earlier astronomers, for a while, were not sure that the evening wandering star (Venus) was the same as the morning wandering star (Lucifer); however, this was before the word planetes was used for astronomy (or astrology, same thing in those days). So it does not count.

In 1610, when Galileo discovered 4 bodies in orbit around Jupiter, he reported them as new planets. They were in the heavens (making each one an 'aster') and they were moving in relation to fixed stars (making each one 'planetes').

Once the Kepler model was adopted (a few decades after), it was decided that the Sun was a star and had a special status as the centre of the system (maybe the universe). It lost its status as a planet (and it is much bigger than Pluto).

It was decided that bodies in orbit around the Sun were planets (the Earth became a planet even though it was never seen as a moving star in the heavens).

Bodies in orbit around planets were called satellites (from a Latin word describing those who would hang around important people). The Moon lost its "planet" status and became a satellite, just like the 4 planets discovered by Galileo around Jupiter.

In total, 6 objects (all bigger than Pluto) lost their status as 'planets'.

In 1801, Ceres was discovered. In that decade 4 planets were discovered between Mars and Jupiter: Ceres, Pallas, Juno and Vesta. For almost 50 years, nothing else. Astronomers were OK with having 4 planets apparently sharing the same "space".

Then, with better telescopes, they began discovering them by the dozen after 1850. Many of them were so small that they would not show us as discs in the telescope ("real" planets show up as discs, not points); because they looked more like stars than planets, they were called asteroids (= star-like).

A new category was created, called "minor planets" and everything in orbit between Mars and Jupiter were included in this category. Thus, the four planets lost their status and were downgraded to minor planets.

In the early 1900s, astronomers thought that Neptune's orbit was being perturbed by yet another undiscovered planet. The search was on. When Pluto was discovered it was thought to be the planet responsible for the perturbation. Pluto was thought to be at least as big as Earth, maybe even 5 to 10 times bigger.

It is now known to be much too small to cause any perturbation (Pluto is smaller than our Moon). Then, about 50 years after its discovery, using better telescopes and equpment, we started finding lots of other similar "stuff" on orbits further than Neptune: Trans-Neptunian-Objects.

Eventually, we found a few that were so similar to Pluto that we had the choice: we'll have lots of smaller planets sharing a space (like in the early 1800s), or we create yet another category (like in the late 1800s).

A new category was created (dwarf planets) and Pluto was reclassified as the first dwarf planet. Ceres (downgraded to minor planet in the late 1800s) got a promotion from minor to dwarf planet.

Answer 7

definite, and that i in my view could have been fantastic if #3 of clearing the debris from its course grew to become into ignored. Its ridicules that some say 9 or 10 or maybe 15 planets is in simple terms too many for a photograph voltaic gadget to have. i desire we are going to stumble on a photograph voltaic gadget that has perhaps 20+ planets in it interior the destiny so as that stupid argument would be moot.

Answer 8

Good question. talk about a tempest in a teapot. I don't think the so-called experts even know. As far as the rest of us....who cares? I'm sure Pluto doesn't care one way or the other.

Answer 9

It has a moon almost the same size... it is now an asteroid or "minor planet". Pluto lies within the Kuiper belt. It's where comet supposedly originate.

Check out this link:

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

Answer 10

Pluto will always be a planet as far as I'm concerned. I'm sticking by my really old placemats and school posters. Ha!

Take that Switzerland.