Monday, November 9, 2009

Is it a planet?

Pluto is not considered an official planet anymore.  Pluto is in the Kupier Belt, a circular ring of methane, ammonia and water ice chunks. Astronomers also found an object beyond Neptune larger than Pluto, Eris. Pluto and Eris have been named dwarf planets because they do not meet the 3 standards of a planet. The 3 standards each planet must meet are: 
- It needs to be in orbit around the sun
- It needs to have enough gravity to pull itself into a spherical shape
- It needs to have "cleared the neighborhood" of its orbit

Pluto and Eris only meet 2 of these 3 standards. They miss the 3 because they are not the greatest object in it's orbit. Pluto 2320 km and that is only 0.07 times the mass of all the other objects in its orbit.

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