Renaming Pluto As Dwarf Planet In Solar System!

Pluto has been bumped from the solar system planet line-up.

The new classification as a dwarf planet is quite a comedown.

However, scientists contend that times are a-changing.  It was late 2005 when an object farther from the Sun than Pluto was discovered on the edge of our solar system.

This celestial body sparked a great debate about what should be considered a planet these days. In late summer 2006, the International Astronomical Union (IAU) convened to create a new definition for a planet.

The new definition of a planet:

The IAU stated that for a celestial body to be a considered a planet in this solar system, it should orbit around the Sun.  This celestial body must also be big enough, using the gravitational forces, to shape itself into a relatively round circumference.  Also, the gravitational pull of this celestial body should be forceful enough to keep other big objects out of its path of orbit.

Pluto reclassified as dwarf planet:

Given these new parameters for planet status, Pluto got reclassified as a dwarf planet.  While it does orbit around the Sun, it does not have enough gravitational force to clear an orbital path.

In fact, its orbit is oblong rather than a circle and takes two hundred forty-eight years to orbit around the sun.  Plus, Pluto’s orbit crosses over into Neptune’s and spends about twenty of those two hundred forty eight years in Neptune’s orbit. When this happens, Neptune becomes the farthest planet from the Sun.

With over seventy-five years as the smallest planet in the solar system line-up, Pluto was demoted to dwarf planet, all thanks to those celestial bodies found on the edge of the solar system just past Pluto.  In fact, the reasoning behind the reclassification was that these celestial bodies did resemble Pluto.

The debate was whether or not these bodies should have been considered planets too. After that discovery was another one with a larger celestial body on the Kuiper Belt (an area with a number of frozen objects just beyond Neptune). It spurred the scientists on to come up with a definition.

Reclassifications are nothing new to our solar system.  Before Pluto’s demotion to dwarf planet status, there was another great debate in the early 1800’s about Ceres, what we now classify an asteroid.

Back then, it was large enough that many scientists classified it as a planet. Once telescopes and other equipment became more technologically advanced, other rocky celestial bodies started appearing near Ceres. This new find prompted a new class called asteroids.

Because of the new classification as a dwarf planet, Pluto had to get a new number, the asteroid number 134340 from the Minor Planet Center.  This is the certified organization that gathers all the data about comets and asteroids in our solar system.

The new asteroid number kind of formally clinches the non-planet status of Pluto and places its dwarf classification in the category with other small bodies in our solar system.

Even though Pluto is not longer the smallest kid on the planet block, many people are still fascinated by this dwarf planet. In fact, that fascination among both the astronomers and public alike spurred a long awaited unmanned voyage to Pluto.  The spacecraft New Horizons recently took off for its Pluto destination.

Scientists speculate that the New Horizons spacecraft may not make it to Pluto until the year 2015.  What will this unmanned craft likely see on Pluto? Scientists speculate that the surface of this dwarf planet is made up of frozen methane.  They are also curious about Pluto’s moons. Charon was first discovered almost thirty years ago and there are two new kids on the block – Nix and Hydra.

Pluto may no longer be a full-fledged planet; however the general population, as well as the astronomers and scientists, will always have a fascination about it. You can be for certain that they all will be waiting with anticipation about what the New Horizons spacecraft will discover in 2015 on Pluto.

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