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Asked by dovey118 to Adam, Geoff, Rob, Sheila, Suzie on 15 Mar 2011 in Categories: Space. This question was also asked by gracecallery, katie273.
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Robert Simpson answered on 14 Mar 2011:
A few years ago people started to discover a large number of objects in the outer Solar System. Most of them were the size of asteroids but some were really big. In 2005, Mike Brown discovered an object called ‘Eris’, which was bigger than Pluto. It was obvious that unless we wanted to have hundreds of ‘planets’ in the Solar System we would need to redefine what we meant by planet. So the idea of a dwarf planet was created to distinguish the big, obvious major planets from the more numerous ‘dwarf planets’. Pluto is now part of this category.
Pluto is still the same object that it has always been, but now it is called a ‘dwarf planet’. It seems there might be a lot of dwarf planets out there. You can find pictures and info on all of them here: http://solarsystem.nasa.gov/planets/profile.cfm?Object=Dwarf&Display=Gallery
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Adam Tuff answered on 14 Mar 2011:
Scientists recently decided Pluto wasn’t a planet a little while ago for several reasons. The main reason was that Pluto has not “cleared it’s neighbourhood” – this means that it is not the only big object in it’s orbit. Pluto shares it’s orbit with lots of asteroids and it’s moon, Charon – Charon is actually very big compared to Pluto too! There is a lot of talk about whether pluto formed with the rest of the planets in the solar system – we currently think it probably wasn’t, and is actually just a big asteroid that got caught in an orbit around the Sun.
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Suzie Sheehy answered on 14 Mar 2011:
I grew up being told that Pluto was a planet so was quite saddened when it was demoted 🙁 But sadly, I agree that scientifically, we can’t classify it as a planet.
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Sheila Kanani answered on 15 Mar 2011:
It is too small to be a ‘real’ planet, so now it is called a dwarf planet.
I feel sorry for it because I am really short so does that mean I am not a ‘real’ person? 🙂
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