One of the biggest \"controversies\" in astronomy in the last decade has been th

Question

One of the biggest "controversies" in astronomy in the last decade has been the "demotion" of Pluto from "planet" to "dwarf planet." This has been a topic for a while, but got kicked up a notch in January 2005, when a team led by astronomer Mike Brown of California Institute of Technology discovered an object in the Kuiper Belt (a belt of objects beyond Neptune, of which Pluto is a part) that is larger than Pluto. This got a lot of attention from the public, in part because Pluto somehow intrigues people as the "little guy" in the solar system. To most scientists, this is mainly a matter of semantics. What we call the object doesn't change what it is or where it is or the fact that it is an interesting thing to study (the New Horizons spacecraft recently gave us our first-ever close-up views of Pluto and its moons on July 14, 2015). Take a look at the articles below, then write a discussion board post about your own thoughts about this. Is it a useful discussion to have among scientists? Among the public? Does it help or hurt efforts to encourage interest in astronomy?

Video of Mike Brown: www.youtube.com/v/ddC3AKJXolk

Pluto's Honor. (Tyson, Neil. Natural History Magazine. February 1999.) www.haydenplanetarium.org/tyson/read/1999/02/01/plutos-honor (Note that this was written before the discovery of Eris.)

Breaking News - Pluto Not a Planet (Plait, Phil. Bad Astronomy Blog. August 24, 2006.) blogs.discovermagazine.com/badastronomy/2006/08/24/breaking-news-pluto-not-a-planet/

Instructions: Your initial post should be at least 200 words.

Explanation / Answer

Pluto is discovered by Clyde W. Tombaugh in 1930 at the Lowell Observatory. Pluto is a smallest planet of our solar system if we consider it as a planet, even it's smmaler than earth'S moon. Pluto is formed by dense or rocky material like other terrestrial planets, mercury, earth, venus and mars. According to new parameters of the International Astronomical Union, an extraterrestrial body must meet the following criteria to become a planet.

1) It's have to orbit around the sun.

2) It's have to enough gravity to pull itself into a spherical shape or round shape

3) It's have to "cleared the neighbourhood" of it's orbit.

pluto fulfill only two requirements for becoming a planet which are 1 and 2, 3rd one is not fulfilled by it. Mass and size of plutos is also debatable in the astronomer community. Size of the pluto is only 2400 km (1500 miles) which is also smaller than smallest planet mercury (4800 km, 3032 miles). Eris(the dwarf planet) also has a 25% more mass than a pluto. size of the pluto is equal to the earth's moon.

That's why pluto is not considered as a planet, it's having a tag of dwarf planet like Eris.

I also think that pluto is not considered as a planet of our solar system, we can consider as a dwarf planet.

This discussion of pluto between astronomers is not enough there is a more points for the discussion becouse pluto follows the the two main parameters of becoming a planet which is suggested by International Astronomical Union. No doubt, this discussion will be helpful to encourage interest in astronomy.

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