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Pluto: The Kuiper Belt

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The Kuiper Belt is a wide, massive belt beyond the orbit of Neptune which orbits around the sun. The belt itself is between 30 AU and 50 AU away from the sun and the size is around 20 AU's wide. It is thought to contain tens of millions of ice bodies called KBO's or Kuiper Belt Objects which is mostly made out of water, methane, and ammonia. The most famous of the objects is of course Pluto. The Kuiper Belt is similar to the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter and is thought to contain over 100,00 KBO's and it is much larger than the inner solar system. However scientist have observed the Belt and only discovered around 1000 KBO's. Mostly all of the objects that have been found are typically made out of rock and metals which contain …show more content…

Another KBO called Eris, is twice the diameter of Charon and is only slightly smaller than Pluto itself. This made astronomers reevaluate if Pluto should actually be considered a planet or as one of the larger bodies in the Kuiper Belt. As different evidence began to mount it was concluded that Pluto was a KBO that just happened to be found 62 years before the 1992 QB1 KBO was discovered. This led to the International Astronomical Union (IAU) voting to classify Pluto and Eris as Dwarf …show more content…

These scattered-disc objects have extreme orbits in our solar system and are thought to be a type of result of gravitational scattering by our larger gas giants, and are still subjected to gravity by the outermost planet in our solar system, Neptune. The closest scattered objects approach the Sun around 30-35 AU, but their orbits can extend well beyond 100 AU which is further than the Kuiper Belt. These objects are the furthest away from the sun which makes them the coldest objects in our solar system. The innermost objects of the scattered disk objects overlaps with the Kuiper

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According to space.com Charon, Pluto’s moon is about half the size of pluto. Also that the dwarf planet Eris is 27% more massive than Pluto. According to the International Astronomical Union for a something to be a planet it has had cleared a path in its orbit. Pluto hasn’t done that which means it can’t be considered a planet anymore. Pluto is very small considering a country on Earth is bigger than a now dwarf planet.

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Pluto was discovered in 1930 and was named a planet. In 2006 it was ruled a dwarf planet. I think that Pluto should not be a planet it should be a dwarf planet. Pluto should not be a planet because there is another planet bigger that was not a planet. It does not clear the neighborhood around the orbit of other objects.

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To prove all these statements,one of the requirements to be a planet is to orbit around the sun according to the Astronomical Union and certainly Pluto does orbit the sun,just a bit slow. Another need that the Astronomical Union calls for is that has to be a round shape and surely Pluto is proven

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Pluto should not be considered a planet. First, According to MissionScience.nasa.gov, for Pluto to be a planet it needs all three of the new criterias. It needs to orbit the sun, needs to be round, and it needs to clear its path and neighborhood around it. Since Pluto only meets two of the three expectations to be a planet, It should not be considered one. It does orbit the sun, it does have enough gravity to make it have a round shape, but it doesn’t clear its neighborhood around it.

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Discovery of Uranus by William Hershcel in 1781 The modern world was changed with the invention of the telescope. We were able to see farther into space because of the telescope. To see things that had been hidden from our view. Sir William Herschel in 1781 discovered Uranus with a telescope that he construed himself.

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Adler Hoffmann Mrs. Rader 8th Grade Language 1 March 2024 Should Pluto be Considered a Planet? Textbooks, websites, school systems, books, acronyms, and more. What do they all have in common? They all had to change in 2006, when the International Astronomical Union (IAU) deemed Pluto, the ninth planet in our solar system, as a dwarf planet instead. At that time, this was a controversial decision because a lot of the general public did not want to have to remove Pluto from anything that mentioned the former nine planets because of the inconvenience of changing these things.

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There have been many sightings of rogue planets throughout the universe. However, in the year of 2006 it was publicized that one of our most important evidence on the existence of rogue planets. With this evidence, it was recorded, that two planets were orbiting each other without a star. This evidence comes from the European Southern Observatory. Astronomers have predicted based on the following quote, “There could be over 100,000 times more rogue planets in the Milky Way than stars.”

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