WHY IS PLUTO NO LONGER A PLANET?

on

INTRODUCTION:

           
             PLUTO | Pluto the 9th  and the last member of our solar system. With the mass of 1.303 x10^22 kg and a radius of 1,188.3 km, it is the smallest world of the solar system. Pluto is 1/2 as wide as the United States and 2/3 the size of the earth's moon. It takes 248 earth years or 90,560 earth days to complete one rotation of the sun whereas earth takes only one year or 365 days. The surface gravity of Pluto is just 0.620 m/s2 and the escape velocity is just 1.212 km/s. Due to the large distance of 149.6 million km from the sun the heat and the light of sun can't reach to the surface of Pluto due to which the surface temperature of Pluto is -223 degrees Celsius. Pluto is only 0.07 times the mass of the other objects in its orbit whereas the earth has1.7 million times the mass of the other object in its orbit.
The core of Pluto is made of rocks, metal and the mantle made of ice and the crust is made of rock material and other types of ice such as frozen carbon monoxide, methane and nitrogen. This frozen gases covered pluto about 6.4 million sq. miles of surface area which is nearly the size of Russia. It has five moons the largest moon is Charon which is half of the size of the Pluto and the four other moons are much smaller. 

Why Pluto removed from the list of the planet?

WHY IS PLUTO NO LONGER A PLANET | Pluto is discovered by an astronomer Clyde Tombaugh in 1930 and they called Pluto as a planet but the International Astronomical Union - IAU released a new rule in 2006 for the member of the solar system to become a complete planet. 
Rule 1) It needs to be in orbit around the sun
Rule 2) It needs to have enough gravity to pull itself into a spherical shape
Rule 3) It needs to have 'cleared the neighbourhood of its orbit'
           
          According to this pluto follow the rule 1 and 2 but it doesn't follow the rule 3 so officially pluto is not a planet. Pluto crosses the orbit of Neptune for 20 earth years every 248 years. Pluto last crossed inside Neptune's orbit on February 7, 1979. The decision has been taken finally in August 2006 the International Astronomical Union - IAU called Pluto as the dwarf planet. There are around 44 dwarf planets in our solar system. ex: Pluto, Makemake, Haumea and Eris are located behind the Neptune and the fourth largest dwarf planet Ceres located in the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter Which means from now on only the rocky worlds of the inner solar system will be designated as a planet.

Facts about Pluto:

  1. Pluto is only 2/3rd part of Earth's moon.
  2. It takes 248 earth years to complete a rotation of the sun.
  3. It takes 5 Hours to reach the sunlight to pluto whereas it takes 8 minutes and 20 sec.
  4. Pluto was named by the name of the Roman god of the underworld.

Comments

Post a Comment