Should Pluto Be Considered A Planet

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

Pluto still needs according to the International Astronomical Union to be able to clear debris from its orbit (Howell). This was Pluto’s downfall, Pluto was too small to be able to clear debris from its orbit. This debunked Pluto as a planet's taking away the planetary status of the ninth planet in our solar system. However, with Pluto meeting three out of the four criteria for keeping its planetary status astronomers classified Pluto as a dwarf planet now (May).

Some might wonder what the difference between a dwarf planet and a regular planet is. There is basically only one difference between the two. That one key difference is that a dwarf planet has not cleared the neighborhood around its orbit. What that means is that it is not gravitationally dominant and that it is sharing orbital space with other bodies of the similar size. It is a very controversial subject as they still try to change the definition.

By definition from a Merriam- Webster Dictionary a planet is “any of the large bodies that revolve around the sun in the solar system which have a similar body to them”. This is not a very specific explanation and makes it hard to fully grasp what it means; at this you could easily say that in fact Pluto a planet. However if you look at a scientific encyclopedia the definition is much different and more specific. The Access Science Encyclopedia says a planet is “A) a celestial body that is in orbit around the sun B) has sufficient mass for its self-gravity to overcome rigid body forces so that it can assume a hydrostatic equilibrium shape C) clears the neighborhood around its orbit”. This explanation is much different and clearer about

Pluto has such an erratic orbit that it crosses into Neptune orbit, which is extremely dangerous (science.howstuffworks 1). Although very unlikely to happen Pluto and Neptune could essentially run into each other with a possible explosion, eliminating one of our eight planets. If all the planets in our solar system orbit in the same direction than why should Pluto be included when it has an entirely different

As we spoke about in class Pluto does not really fit into the categories of being a planet, this was one of the major arguments as to why Pluto should not be considered our nineth planet anymore. I believe that it is interesting that some people were trying to then create a classification specifically for Pluto. However, this obviously did not come to be as there must be more than one of something in order for it

Once, Pluto was considered the ninth and most distant planet from our sun. Pluto was discovered by an American astronomer name Clyde Tombaugh in 1930. But before being discovered, an American astronomer name Percival Lowell was actually the first to caught hints of Pluto’s existence in 1905. He suggested that there was another world’s gravity that was tugging at the two planets, Neptune and Uranus, from beyond. It turns out that there was another planet, the smallest and ninth planet from the sun, Pluto. The now dwarf planet was named by an 11 year old girl from Oxford, England whose name was Venetia Katharine Douglas Phair or Venetia Burney. The astronomer did predict the planet’s location in 1915, but unfortunately he died without finding

To begin, Pluto was once considered a planet. Pluto was first found and classified as a planet in 1930. It was classified as a planet because it orbited the sun and it was round or nearly round. There are still many things to discover on pluto. For example, According to NASA, the new horizons have shown that pluto could have a water-ice ocean.

Outer space is a realm of new discoveries and possibilities. There is one particular planet in our solar system that is brimming with these possibilities. However, for nine years it has not actually been considered a planet. The “dwarf planet”, Pluto, has been overlooked and misrepresented in astronomy and planetary science. Since being demoted from planet status to dwarf planet status, little Pluto has raised some big questions about what defines a planet and what does not. In this paper, I will attempt to persuade you that Pluto should be promoted back to its original planet status. First, I will give you a brief history of Pluto, from its discovery to what prompted its reclassification. Next, I will explain the definition of a planet as given by the International Astronomical Union (IAU) and the definition’s flaws. Finally, I will discuss the recent discoveries of the New Horizons mission and how these new discoveries should lead to the reclassification of Pluto to its original planet status.

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

First of all, you probably know Pluto fits all but one of the IAU’s, International planet requirements. The original definition of planet was a wanderer, created by the Greeks that watched these planets move for thousands of years (Scientific American). If the world had left that definition, then we would have hundreds of planets in our solar system including Pluto. In fact, we didn 't have an official definition until 2006.This meant that Pluto could no longer be considered a planet since the definition required it to have three characteristics. The IAU decided that in order to qualify as a planet, it had to orbit the Sun, be big enough for gravity to squash it into a round

At the end of our Solar System lies a small a small planet, smaller than any of the other planets, Pluto. In 1905, Lowell, an american astronomer, found the force of gravity of some unknown planet that is affect the orbits of Neptune and Uranus. In 1915 he predicted the location of a new planet. Lowell used a telescope to scope the sky where he thought that the planet would be discovered at. However, Lowell died without actually discovering Pluto. In 1930 Clyde W Tombaugh took over Lowell’s research on Pluto. He used predictions made by Lowell and other astronomers and photographed the sky with a more powerful telescope. After he examined the photos he found Pluto. Lowell and Tombaugh's work helped to find the ninth planet in the solar system,

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.

To be qualified as a planet and object must orbit a star, is not star-like in that it is undergoing internal nuclear fusion, and has a gravitational force that will allow it to retain a spherical shape. Pluto certainly fulfills these requirements, however, there are Kuiper objects that also meet the same criteria. These objects have been classified as minor planets and have been assigned a numerical designation. Despite all the argument for demoting Pluto to a minor planet, its status has remained the same, even if solely contributed to maintaining historical context.

our solar system, but they are unimportant compared to the nine major planets. In this paper I will discuss the planets and how they are each unique.