In August of 2006 Pluto was declared to no longer be a planet. This was due to a rewriting of the definition of “planet”.
According to the new definition, a full-fledged planet is an object that orbits the sun and is large enough to have become round due to the force of its own gravity. In addition, a planet has to dominate the neighborhood around its orbit.
Pluto has been demoted because it does not dominate its neighborhood. Charon, its large “moon,” is only about half the size of Pluto, while all the true planets are far larger than their moons.
Pluto is now officially a “dwarf planet”. But it’s no longer part of an exclusive club, since there are more than 40 of these dwarfs, including the large asteroid Ceres and 2003 UB313, nicknamed Xena—a distant object slightly larger than Pluto discovered by Brown last year.
May 28th, 2007 at 12:32 am
i think pluto isnt a planet coz it haz ice and stuff on it. does any one here like chocolate coz i do……….
November 17th, 2008 at 5:48 pm
i like chocolate 2 and pluto isn’t a planet cos there are at least 70 000 other planets the same size as pluto in the kuiper belt so really its just another kuiper belt object
November 19th, 2008 at 4:16 pm
i like chocolate 2 and pluto isn’t a planet cos there are at least 70 000 other planets the same size as pluto in the kuiper belt so really its just another kuiper belt object