Pluto was discovered by a young astronomer named Clyde W. Tombaugh about 85 years ago. Clyde discovered Pluto while looking for any moving objects on a blink comparator. A blink comparator is a machine that rapidly switched images back and forth to create the illusion of movement.
As it has been proved pluto infact does orbit the moon and has moons of its own. So with pluto having two of the four classifications why would it be declassified? It has been thought that pluto might just simply be the first of a population of small, icy bodies beyond the orbit of Neptune.” ( Rincon). But many people contradict that theory saying that Pluto orbits the sun so therefore it has to be a planet and that the icy bodies, if beyond the orbit of Neptune, would then not be able to orbit the sun like Pluto infact does. Pluto before has been thought to have been a meteor that had just been caught in the gravitational pull of the solar system. That was however proved inaccurate because Pluto was far it big in mass to be a meteor. With Pluto being more than 3.6 billion miles away from the sun (May). It hardly gets warmth and which is why Pluto is a hard crater filled icy orb. Many people believe that pluto is just a larger
b. Jennifer Rosenberg in her article Pluto Discovered writes, “It took a year of detailed, painstaking work, but Tombaugh did find Planet X. The discovery occurred on February 18, 1930 while Tombaugh was carefully examining a set of photographic plates created by the telescope”. Tombaugh officially announced the discovery of the ninth planet on March 13, 1930.
Many issues have arisen from the debate whether or not Pluto is a planet. Some astronomers say that Pluto should be classified as a “minor planet” due to its size, physical characteristics, and other factors. On the other hand, some astronomers defend Pluto’s planet status, citing several key features.
Going back to the criteria the three pieces of criteria it needs to meet are, the object must orbit the sun, the object must be a sphere and it must be created and maintained by its own gravitational force, and the object must have a clear path around its orbit of other objects. Pluto does orbit the sun. It does have a spherical shape, but Pluto’s path is not clear, it is crowded with lots of other objects. That proves that Pluto is not a planet because, it only meets two of the three criteria pieces.There are rocks in outer space that are the same size as Pluto! That’s pretty small to be considered a planet. If you look at a comparison of the other planets and Pluto you will see the drastic difference. Pluto is just simply too puny to be a planet. Many people say that it should be continued to be thought of as a planet because it has been that way for a long time and that's how most people know Pluto as, a planet. That doesn’t matter though, just because people are used to it being known as a planet doesn’t mean Pluto should still be considered a planet. Facts clearly show that Pluto is a dwarf planet. There are rocks in outer space that are the same size as Pluto! That’s pretty small to be considered a planet. All in all, Pluto clearly isn’t considered a planet, because it only meets two out of the three criteria pieces to be considered a
Neil DeGrasse Tyson wrote The Pluto Files: The Rise and Fall of America’s Favorite Planet to examine why Pluto ought not to be considered a planetary body and instead a dwarf planet or Kuiper Belt Object.
The discussion about Pluto’s status in our solar system is still in question. The definition of a planet is changing as society advances and as time passes. We used to believe that Pluto was a planet which orbits the sun, but in a weird way since it’s orbit is quite odd compared to other planets in our solar system. Pluto is different such that, it has five moons and crosses Neptune’s orbit. Not only does it do that, it is quite small in contrast to the other celestial body in our solar system. As society advances, we question the definition of a planet and Pluto’s status in our solar system. Our crave for knowledge and curiosity about what’s around us motivates us to explore the unknown. Our desire to learn more is due to the fact that people
It was discovered in Arizona, USA and an eleven year old girl from England won the naming contest, naming the new planet "Pluto" after the Roman god of the underworld. Astronomers are not certain, but they think that the composition is similar to Triton's with 70% rock and 30% ice. It has a low pressure atmosphere containing nitrogen, methane, and carbon dioxide. It is about one sixth the mass of Earth's moon and has five natural satellites, it's most famous moon being Charon. The other four moons were discovered in the 21st century, named Nix, Hydra, Kerberos, and Styx. There is a spacecraft called New Horizons that has just made it to Pluto. This fairly recent discovery, however, did not even make a full revolution around the sun before it was demoted to a dwarf planet for not complying with the last of the three planet requirements: "It has cleared the neighborhood of its orbit of any other space debris." It has now been named a dwarf planet, a title given to celestial bodies what are missing just one of the three requirements to become a
Astronomers now label Pluto as a “dwarf planet” because it does not meet all of the criteria to be a planet. It is also not alone in its orbit; it is part of a wide group of small-scale objects that have been detected revolving around the Sun beyond Neptune.
Did you know Pluto’s not a planet? Pluto is a dwarf planet. The astronomers are going to find out how Pluto became a dwarf planet.
Pluto should not be considered a planet because it did not meet requirements. There are many requirements that bodies have to meet to be considered a planet. The body of pluto meets some of the requirements needed to be a planet. The requirement it meets is that's a sphere. The requirements that it doesn't hit is that it didn't clear its orbit around the
The New Horizons space mission taught astronomers a lot about Pluto that cannot be seen with any telescope on Earth. For example, “this fascinating world has blue skies, spinning moons, …. And it snows - but the snow is red” (“Solar System Exploration: Pluto: In Depth.”). In addition to this, astronomers also discovered that Pluto had more moons than they originally thought.
Not only are Pluto and the other eight planets similar, they are also different in multiple ways. After all, Wilson A. Bentley once said: “No two snowflakes are alike.” As most, if not all, people know, planets have an orbit. However, Pluto’s orbit is a little different and unusual compared to the orbit of the other eight planets. Although Pluto takes longer than the other planets to one orbit around the sun (248 earth years), the main difference is that Pluto’s orbit doesn’t lie in the same plane as the eight planets, but is inclined at an angle of 17 degrees. Not only that, but its orbit is more elliptical, or oval-shaped, than others. This causes Pluto to sometimes passes inside the orbit of Neptune. In paragraph 3, it mentioned that
For the first source, an article called “Is Pluto a Planet”, written by Graham Rax. This article was published by Kalmbach Publishing Company in 1999, on a magazine called ASTRONOMY. It mainly from several point of view to discuss about his opinion: How does the scientist find the Pluto. What the properties does the Pluto has. The Pluto’s neighborhood condition. The definition of the planet. At last it gives a conclusion that
In the outer limits of our solar system there is a planet unlike any other, Pluto. Pluto was discovered in February of 1930 by an American astronomer, Clyde Tombaugh. It is the only planet to have been discovered by an American. All though we have known of the existence of Pluto for over thirty years now, there are still many mysteries surrounding this celestial body. Being the farthest planet has made it difficult to study Pluto, Adding to the obscurity of this strange planet is that the capability to send spacecraft such distances has never been achieved. Through the wonders of science and astronomy, there are many things that can be determined, concluded, and hypothesized about this obscure planet.