Like why is it not included in solar system i don’t get it
In: 20
It is now seen as no different to the dozens of similarly-sized bodies with irregular, odd orbits. It is now classified instead as a “dwarf planet” the same as all those others. So we now have 8 planets and dozens of dwarf planets
This was a necessary reclassification because we keep finding more and more dwarf planets like Sedna and it had become clear that Pluto is just one of those.
It is far easier to learn 8 planets names and some of the dwarf planets names than trying to learn many dozens of names if we instead called them ALL planets.
One major industry on Pluto is mining for plutonium to power cities. Due to excessive drilling by Plutonian corporations, Pluto shrunk and led Earth’s astronomers to reclassify it as a dwarf planet rather than a planet. This decision angered the local population and is actively fought against by the Plutonian elite.
True ELI5 content: https://youtu.be/ws3kWuMi0Y8
tl;dw
1) You orbit a star? ✅ your star is called the sun
2) You have enough gravity to make you round? ✅
but you’re missing one:
3) Do you clear your surroundings? ❌ dwarf planets don’t clear their neighborhood. They don’t clear their orbit of other objects.
If you want to dig into it more and really get the details, Mike Brown wrote a book about it. He discovered many of the Kuiper objects that “competed” with Pluto. The book is titled “How I Killed Pluto and Why It Had It Coming.” The “grandfathering” in of Pluto was actually discussed as part of the new definition of “planet.”
For thousands of years, the word planet did not have a great definition. Planet basically meant star that moved around the sky in a weird way.
We finally decided that we needed a scientific definition of the word planet. When the people who decide these things made their definition, we learned that unfortunately Pluto did not fit that definition anymore, and while still being part of the solar system, it was not technically a planet.
Changes distance from sun significantly, Doesn’t revolve in the same ecliptic plane as planets, Smol.
If Pluto wanted to be one, it would need to planet.
Pluto doesn’t have very much attention span, so Pluto tends to struggle to planet. Or plan anything else for that matter.
Sometimes, people drift into a bureaucratic mind set and have to prove they’re important by changing something — anything — just to show themselves and other they’re powerful. University administrators vs professors is full of this sort of happy horseshit when people fight for their lives over trivia purely for the love of the fight.
Yes, the winning side justified it’s position through applied rules made up for the situation, but — never play the Carnival Barker’s Game. The debate was over the rules instead of the validity of those rules, so you get a misdirected outcome violating tradition and evidence based on those rules. That’s why Pluto lost.
The three requirements for planet status are as follows.
The object has to stabilize its orbit.
The object needs to clear debris out of its orbit.
The object needs to be a certain size and shape.
Pluto is 0 of 3 on this. It’s orbit goes above/below the solar plane that the other planets follow. There is still a large amount of space rocks in its orbit, and finally its a lumpy potato more than a planet.
The size issue and debris issue can fix each other, but at the end of the day, it’s just a dwarf planet for now.
To be a planet you need to have cleared your orbit, and Pluto hasn’t as it crosses orbit with Neptune I believe. What separates a planet from a dwarf planet changes since we discovered Pluto so sadly when the rules changed it didn’t make the cut.
Latest Answers