Is pluto still considered a planet or a natural satellite??

Question

Just wanted clarrification

Answer 1

Dwarf planet !

Answer 2

Didn't they recently change it from a dwarf planet to a "plutoid".  Could swear I read this in the news a month or so ago because I remember thinking how stupid it was.

Answer 3

You know they don't like to be called "dwarves".   Its more correct to say 'little-planet'  or 'seismically challenged spacial body'

Answer 4

Neither.  It's considered a "Dwarf planet".  

Answer 5

It is classified as a dwarf planet. I think that another has been found beyond Pluto's orbit also

Answer 6

It's classified as a dwarf planet now!

Answer 7

it is a dwarf planet

Answer 8

dwarf planet

Answer 9

The International Astronomical Union calls Pluto a Dwarf Planet, and a Plutoid.  The Minor planet center has issued a number for it, so Pluto is a minor planet - which is another name for an asteroid.

By my definition of planet, it's still a planet.  It has an atmosphere, which Mercury lacks, it has three moons, which both Mercury and Venus lack.  But i'm not the IAU.  If i sell you a star to name, everyone will ignore this new name.  But i'll be slightly richer, and you'll be slightly poorer.

Answer 10

Like quantumc said - it's neither

It is a Dwarf planet and a Kuiper Belt Object.

The International Astronomical Union defined a planet in 2006. Prior to then, we did not have a definition for planets. The planets out to Saturn are visible without a telescope, so have always been known. Consequently we didn’t have a definition for a planet before!

Ceres, the largest asteroid and the first to be discovered was originally classified as a planet, and kept this status until we discovered that it was just the largest of a class of objects we now call asteroids.

Pluto was only discovered in 1930 and it is now clear that it is actually the largest of a class of objects we now call Kuiper Belt Objects.

Consequently we now have a new class of objects called Dwarf Planets, which included Pluto and Ceres, but should also include Eris, Quaoar, and Sedna as well as several objects that are currently unnamed (they have numbers) and maybe a couple of other asteroids.

If you want to keep Pluto as a planet, you need to promote Ceres back to planet status, and you need to promote the other Dwarf Planets - necessitating textbook re-writes anyway.

Since the Kuiper belt is where many comets from, we might class Pluto as a proto-comet.

You can download my powerpoint presentation from: http://stardust.astro.missouri.edu/FTP/

the file is called: Pluto_talk.ppt

(original – huh?)

Answer 11

No, pluto is not considered to be a planet anymore. It is now a dwarf planet. A Dwarf planet is NOT a planet, believe it or not.

Even though Pluto rounded itself out through gravity, it failed to clear its region of planetesimals (solid objects that usually form a planet). Basically, Pluto was not large enough or dense enough to suck in the other rocks around it while it was forming.