Pluto Case Study

Indeed, most of the problem is that there is no formal definition of a planet. Furthermore, it is very difficult to invent one that would allow the solar system to contain all nine planets. I suggest that for an object to be classified as a planet, it must embody three characteristics. It must be in orbit around a star (thus removing the larger satellites from contention), it must be too small to generate heat by nuclear

This activity is about the main events in New Horizon’s journey to Pluto and beyond.

The mission called the New Horizons created a spacecraft, which is nuclear-powered and had the capability of gathering 10 times the data for scientific research. Another factor that led to the New Horizons mission to be the winner is that it only costed $250 million dollars. The New Horizons mission sent a spacecraft on February 2, 2006 and which is expected to will flyby Pluto by the year 2015. Astronomers were able to find three Kuiper Belt objects that are significant for New Horizons mission. The principal investigator of the New Horizons, Alan Stern stated,“ Astronomer Gerard Kuiper, who wrote a paper in 1951 about smaller objects that were farther away

Unless the criteria for planets changed Pluto shouldn’t be flipflopping back and forth. This shows that emotions for certain objects, such as Pluto, aren’t exempt from those that make the debatable decisions. Why do peoples’ emotions get in the way of making decisions? Decisions should be based off of facts, not how one feels during one specific time. Looking off of the facts also helps there from being any bias.

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.

Christopher Crokett says, “On July 14, NASA’s New Horizons spacecraft will reach the dwarf planet and try to learn all it can about Pluto and its five known moons. Then the probe will leave Pluto behind, vanishing into the frigid darkness beyond the planets.”

My Thesis statement is Phuto was once considered to be a planet but now Pluto is the most famous dwarf planet in our solar system. Pluto is made up of ⅔ of rock and ⅓ of ice. Pluto was discovered by Clyde Tombaugh on January 23, 1930. Pluto is very very cold you can't even imagine how much colder it is than Antarctic.If that happen in Earth the air would turn into snow that's how cold it would be about 230 degrees below zero Celsius. When you want to see Pluto up in the sky you can't even see Pluto with your naked eye. Pluto is very hard to see once you look in the telescope it look a little like a star even with the telescope.

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.

"We are 100 percent confident that this is the first object bigger than Pluto ever found in the outer solar

People love Pluto, whether they are young or old it does not seem to matter. The ‘planet’ (and Walt Disney’s beloved character) holds a special place in a lot of people’s hearts. Yet, this only became clear to me after reading The Pluto Files by Neil deGrasse Tyson. I remember when Pluto’s classification changed from being a planet to a dwarf planet however, I was never aware of how big of a controversy it caused. The fact that there was a conference deciding whether or not we should keep Pluto as our ninth planet was not something I was aware of previously to this book. Tyson does a wonderful job explaining the story of Pluto and not only the how the planet was reclassified but also why.

This article relates to the upcoming lab because it talks about "ice volcanoes," and we will be talking about volcanoes during the next lab session. In general, volcanoes are an incredibly interesting thing to think about because they are mountains that erupt lava, hot vapor, rock fragments, etc. Ice volcanoes are an even more fascinating thing to think about because I was not aware that they even existed; the possibility that they might exist on Pluto is insane. Although the two mountains that have been seen on Pluto might not be ice volcanoes, it's still compelling to think that they might be, especially since they have "depressions similar to volcanoes found on Mars and Earth." This article does not affect me directly, but this discovery might help scientists get more of an understanding of what Pluto might look like in the future.

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

The approach to the Pluto system over the last few days has yielded previously unexcelled images of the planet, as well as its moon, Charon (pronounced equally as “Sharon” or “Karen”). But Stern promised the next few days will bring forth much better photos, with ten times the resolution of previous images.

Thesis Statement: With the advances in technology, scientist have opened the door to the discovery of Pluto,

This mission’s spacecraft is the second designed for NASA’s New Frontiers, with the first being Pluto New Horizons launched in 2006. New Frontiers is a program focused on medium-sized missions that are of crucial importance to the objectives of the Decadal Solar System Exploration Survey. It focuses on the building of a solid understand of planetary science, with priorities set by the Space Studies Board of the National Research Council.