Pluto Research Paper

During the mid-19th century, astronomers and stargazers began to question whether or not Neptune was the final planet in our solar system. Many people believed that the only explanation for certain discrepancies seen in the orbital patterns of Neptune and Uranus had to be caused by an undiscovered celestial body that had enough power to impact these two planets. After years of searching for the famous mystery planet, Pluto was discovered by Clyde Tombaugh at the Lowell Observatory in Flagstaff, Arizona. ‘It was given the name Pluto by an eleven year old girl from England who made the suggestion that it be named after the Greek ruler of the underworld’ (Solarsystem.nasa.gov). Although many people were thrilled about the discovery of a new planet

However, on August 24th, 2006, members of the International Astronomical Union “agreed that a ‘planet’ is defined as a celestial body that (a) is in orbit around the Sun, (b) has sufficient mass for its self-gravity to overcome rigid body forces so that it assumes a hydrostatic equilibrium (nearly round) shape, and (c) has cleared the neighborhood around its orbit” (IAU.org). On the other hand, they determined that a dwarf planet follows the same guidelines as planets, except they do not have the ability to clear the neighborhood around their orbit. When a planet clears the neighborhood, it means that it has swept its surrounding area clear of any other celestial bodies so that it is the sole occupant of its orbital region. In other words, there are no other objects besides its satellites that are affected by its gravitational pull. Pluto does not fit under this category because it shares an orbital space with objects in the Kuiper belt such as plutinos, which are trans-Neptunian bodies that orbit the Sun at the same rate as Pluto. However, this demotion of Pluto from a planet to a dwarf planet wasn’t too surprising since its classification had been questionable ever since it was first

The most recent of these debates took place in September 2014, when many people gathered at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics in order to discuss whether or not Pluto’s current status as a dwarf planet is correct. One speaker pointed out that the term ‘planet’ holds different meanings for different people, and that we do not yet have enough knowledge of the solar system to indefinitely define what qualifies as a planet. The director of the forum, David Aguilar, brought up a valid point that dwarf fruit trees and dwarf rabbits are still considered fruit trees and rabbits regardless of their size, and that we should treat the classification of planets in a similar fashion (Lemonick). Another speaker argued that if you were to classify Pluto as a planet, other similar celestial bodies such as Eris and those in the Kuiper Belt would also have to be considered planets. As more objects are discovered beyond the region of Pluto, the number of possible planets would skyrocket, which some people believe would be confusing and make it difficult to teach school children about all of the possible hundreds of different planets in our solar system (Lemonick). At the end of the debate, a majority of the audience voted in favor of classifying Pluto as a planet