Pluto No Longer a Planet?!

Drew Erkelens
Period 5/6 Blue
Current Science Report

Pluto No Longer a Planet?!

In August 2006, the "planet" to be called Pluto has been re stated and is no longer a planet. Scientists came up with a new definition of what a planet should be, and pluto with its ice covered body did not fit into the criteria. The change from the number of planets going from 9 to 8 will cause many problems to textbooks and they will have to be re written and taught. According to scientists, Pluto is now a dwarf planet which means it orbits around the sun, but is not close enough to the other planets to be considered a planet,nut is actually a kuiper belt.

Pluto had been a planet in our solar system for more than 76 years but four years ago it was taken out. The definition for what a planet really is had changed a lot over the years. The scientific definition now is a round object that has enough gravity to become round and orbit the sun,but most importantly it had to dominate its region surrounding it. When Eris was found (an object with a bigger mass than pluto) scientists began doubting if pluto was really a planet or not.

This is science related because to find out if Pluto was a planet, they had to deal with mass,volume etc(Shown Below). The article had to do with astronomy and our Solar System which i think is scientific and anything to do with our planets is science related.

I think that the scientists are right in believing that Pluto is not a planet but how could we go so long not knowing?We need to go one way or another with what a planet really is and decide for sure which discoveries are planets and which aren't.I liked this article because I didn't know for sure if Pluto was still a planet but now I do. These articles were very informing and seeing what the characteristics of the planet help pt a picture n my mind of why it really wasn't a planet. Science proved now that because Pluto doesn't dominate its area around,and has smaller moons clustered by it is not a planet in our solar system.


Discovered by Clyde W. Tombaugh in 1930

Surface Area- 1.665*10 to the 7 power km squared

Mass- (1.305 symbol thing 0.007)*10 to the 22 power km squared

Volume- 6.39*10 to the 9 power km cubed(or 0.0059 Earths)

Density- 2.03 symbol thing 0.06g/cm cubed

0.07 times mass of objects in its orbit (Earth is 1.7 million times the mass of its objects in its orbit)

Mostly made made up of Nitrogen and Methane

Named after the Roman God of the underworld