• Question: Do you think the planet pluto should be planet and why?

    Asked by Gizmo to Rob, Chris, Josh, Rebecca, Susan on 14 Jun 2015. This question was also asked by Hunny.
    • Photo: Rob Temperton

      Rob Temperton answered on 14 Jun 2015:

      Hello!

      I am quite happy with Pluto being classified as a dwarf planet. There are some criteria that the scientific community generally agrees on which decides which objects in space count as planets. One of them is whether they are large enough to have a strong enough gravitational field to interact with everything else that shares its orbit. The idea is that over a lot of time, everything apart from the planet itself will either be attracted to it or be flung out of its way! Pluto is not big enough to do this so got called a “dwarf planet” rather than a “planet”

      Anyhow, I am very happy to accept this decision. It is a good example of how the scientific community changes its stance on things as it learns new information (in this case it was the existence of so many other objects in space).

      Rob

      Disclaimer: I am not an astronomer so some of the above may be oversimplified!

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