Pluto's Planetary Analysis

Recently Pluto was declassified as a planet leaving only eight planets in Earth’s solar system. There were many mixed feelings about the declassification. Many people were happy because they thought pluto should have never been considered a planet in the first place. People thought that pluto was far to small and too far away to be a planet in the first place, over shadowed by the much larger nearer planets to it. Meanwhile other people were distraught at the thought that NASA could take Pluto’s title as a planet away that easily. Growing up with being taught about Pluto as a planet and learning so much about it many people were offended that the title of planet was striped from Pluto.

Pluto isn’t a planet for many reasons the main one being, it only follows two of the three criteria of being a planet. According to the article “Pluto: Planet or not?”, for Pluto to be a planet it needs to meet three pieces of criteria. In the article “Pluto: Planet or not?” it states that “Pluto meets two of these three criteria.” Therefore, Pluto should not be considered a planet because, it doesn't meet the criteria it needs to. Many scientist would agree that Pluto is considered a dwarf planet. “Pluto is a dwarf planet” Christensen wrote. It’s just plain and simple, Pluto is a dwarf planet, no doubt about it. There shouldn’t be any confusion about whether Pluto should be considered or not for many reasons. If it doesn’t meet all three

Neil DeGrasse Tyson is an exceptionally qualified individual to address the issues brought up over the course of the book. He received his bachelor’s degree in physics from Harvard University in 1980, master’s degree in astronomy from the University of Texas at Austin in 1983, and master’s and doctorate’s degrees in astrophysics from Columbia University in 1989 and 1994 respectively. Tyson has been the director of the Hayden Planetarium at the Rose Center for Earth and Space since 1996, as well as a research associate for the American Museum

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.

The International Astronomical Union decided that Pluto was too small to be a planet and created a new category to put it in, dwarf planets. Dwarf Planets are classified as “A) a celestial body that is in orbit around the sun, B) has sufficient mass for it self- gravity to overcome rigid body forces so that is assumes a hydrostatic equilibrium (nearly round) shape, C) has not cleared the neighbourhood around its orbit, and D) is not a satellite”. The criteria for both planets and dwarf planets are very similar, though planets must be able to clear the neighbourhood around its orbit. This basically means that a planet must be able to complete a rotation around the sun without interfering with another planets orbit. Pluto is very close to Neptune so they had a chance to collide into each other. If you look at a visual it is clear that there orbital rotation paths intersect with each other at two locations. This is another reason why Pluto is no longer considered a planet.

In comparison to Earth, Pluto is about 39 times further away, and therefore, it takes Pluto 248 Earth years to complete one orbit (Landau, Pluto 19). Compared to Earth’s 24 hours in a day, “a day on Pluto lasts 153 hours, or about 6 Earth days” (“Solar System Exploration: Pluto: In Depth.”). Pluto is also only 1,400 miles wide, which is “about half the width of the United States, or 2/3 the width of Earth’s moon” (“Solar System Exploration: Pluto: In Depth.”). Since Pluto is less dense than Earth, Pluto’s mass is an astonishing “one-sixth that of Earth’s moon” ( “Solar System Exploration: Pluto: In Depth.”). When New Horizons visited Pluto, it was also discovered that Pluto has a “heart shaped glacier that’s the size of Texas and Oklahoma” (“Solar System Exploration: Pluto: In Depth.”) and “mountains as high as the Rockies” (“Solar System Exploration: Pluto: In Depth.”). Overall, Pluto is much smaller and less dense than Earth, setting it apart from the other planets which are on a larger scale.

Reporters with interest in Pluto have published many articles related to the matter of whether Pluto should be considered a planet. Many are opposing the opinion that Pluto should not be considered a planet as the third condition is very vague. For instance, the Earth’s neighbourhood could be considered as not cleared out as the moon is following it around; Jupiter is continuously having contact with asteroids named Trojans, and Neptune’s orbit crosses over with Pluto’s orbit. The Guardian stated in one of it’s articles that Pluto should not have a ban from being a planet due to its small size. IAU, however, has not made any regards on this criticism. These opposing views about Pluto may be correct in a way; however, factually speaking, Pluto is still not considered as a planet as IAU has not made any changes towards its definition of the word,

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

planet test to see if it was a planet or a dwarf planet? Well I believe that Pluto should be a planet

In elementary school, I only learned about eight planets with the famous saying of, ‘My Very Excited Mother Just Served Us Nachos.’ So, I was never taught to think Pluto was a planet. I saw that it wasn’t planet on the internet and just went to with the concept. However, I wonder now, why can’t Pluto be a planet? Caltech planetary scientist Mike Brown can explain why Pluto is no longer considered a planet.

What if something one believed in for a lifetime turned out to be wrong? Among astronomers and astrogeologists one of the most asked questions within the field would be, “Is Pluto a planet?” As of August 24, 2006, Pluto was demoted as a planet by the International Astronomical Union to a dwarf planet and since then this has been a hot debate topic. Based off of the unfair voting that took place to demote Pluto and the ambiguous definition of a planet by the International Astronomical Union, Pluto should be considered a planet. For starters, one of the reasons Pluto should be considered a planet is the “unfair” vote that took place deciding whether Pluto should should demoted.

In 2006 when Pluto was reclassified controversy began and debates have developed among the scientific

Starting off with no secrets, Yaeger tells the viewer of this article what Will Grundy of Lowell Observatory in Flagstaff, Ariz believes about Pluto. Will Grundy shares an unpopular opinion on Pluto which is stated in the magazine, “Pluto is a Planet” (Page 4), and he seeks to prove this to everyone. Now, why would Pluto not be a planet? The article addresses this question excellently, as explained by the provided definition of a planet originally, “The idea of a planet as a roundish, rocky or gaseous body that orbits the sun stuck, until 2006.” Although, the International Astronomical Union (IAU) changed this definition in exchange for a more narrow criteria for a ‘planet’, this is what led to Pluto being downgraded to a dwarf planet because, unlike its other orbiting masses, Pluto doesn’t consume or fling any objects into space.

Pluto was officially discovered by Clyde Tombaugh (http://www.achievement.org/autodoc/page/tom0bio-1) on February 18th, 1930. It resides in the farthest cluster of objects in our solar system known as the Kuiper Belt. In these 85 years that we have known of Pluto, it has yet to make one whole revolution around the sun. Not only is Pluto’s journey around Sol incredibly massive, New Horizons’ trek to the now dwarf planet is just as impressively expansive. Measuring in at around 3 billion miles

In a move that 's already generating controversy and will force textbooks to be rewritten, Pluto will now be dubbed a dwarf planet.