Pluto Dwarf facts
While investigating facts about Pluto Dwarf Planet and Pluto Dwarf Planet Facts, I found out little known, but curios details like:
There exists a planet between Mars and Jupiter known as Ceres. It's a dwarf planet, like Pluto, and may contain water and an atmosphere.
how did pluto become a dwarf planet?
The woman who (at age 11) suggested they name the newly-discovered trans-Neptunian celestial body "Pluto" lived long enough to see the International Astronomical Union demote Pluto to the status of "dwarf planet", 76 years later.
What year was pluto reclassified as a dwarf planet?
In my opinion, it is useful to put together a list of the most interesting details from trusted sources that I've come across answering what year did pluto become a dwarf planet. Here are 42 of the best facts about Pluto Dwarf Planet Year and Pluto Dwarf Star I managed to collect.
what makes pluto a dwarf planet?
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Clyde Tombaugh, the astronomer who discovered Pluto, had some of his ashes placed aboard the New Horizons space probe, the spacecraft that first explored the dwarf planet
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In 2005 another Kuiper Belt Object was discovered. This dwarf planet is called Eris and it is smaller than Pluto. It takes Eris 580 years to revolve around the sun.
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There is a dwarf planet called Orcus that is referred to as the "anti-Pluto" because its orbit is almost a mirror image of Pluto's and, like Pluto, it has a proportionally large moon.
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When Pluto was discovered in 1930 it was classified as a planet, making it the ninth planet in the solar system. However when the formal definition of a planet was established, Pluto was reclassified as a dwarf planet.
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After 1992, Pluto's planethood was questioned following the discovery of several objects of similar size in the Kuiper belt. In 2005, when Eris was discovered at 27% more massive than Pluto, it led the International Astronomical Union to define the term planet formally for the first time the following year. This definition excluded Pluto and it was reclassified as a dwarf planet.
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A dwarf planet like Pluto orbits the Sun and has enough mass to become a sphere (shaped like a smooth ball).
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Persephone was also considered as a name for Eris. Persephone was the wife of Pluto (also a dwarf planet). The dwarf planet also had the nickname Xena for a short time.
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The International Astronomical Union officially recognizes five dwarf planets in our Solar System. They are Ceres, Haumea, Makemake, Eris and Pluto. Ceres is found in the outer Solar System and the other four are found in the asteroid belt. The largest is Pluto and the smallest is Ceres.
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The most well-known dwarf planet Pluto has been somewhat controversial. Pluto was classified as the ninth planet of the Sun for 76 years. It was discovered on February 18, 1930 by Clyde W. Tombaugh.
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Eris was almost classified as the tenth planet. Following reclassification of planets, Eris and Pluto were both classified as dwarf planets. This reduced the number of planets in our solar system to only eight, rather than nine when Pluto had been a planet.
Why was pluto reclassified as a dwarf planet?
You can easily fact check why did pluto become a dwarf planet by examining the linked well-known sources.
A Pluto-sized world, astronomers discovered Eris in 2003. It takes icy Eris 557 Earth years to complete a single orbit around the sun. All the asteroids in the asteroid belt would fit inside Eris. However, like Pluto, Eris is still smaller than the Earth's moon.
Nobody knows for sure how many dwarf planets exist in our solar system. Some of the known dwarf planets are Ceres, Pluto, Haumea, Eris and Makemake.
Pluto is not the only dwarf planet in the Kuiper Belt. Two other dwarf planets, Haumea and Makemake was discovered in 2004 and 2005 respectively. - source
His book, How I killed Pluto and Why it Had It Coming, explained why Pluto did not fit the International Astronomical Union's definition of a planet and why it now designated a dwarf planet.
Scientists believe there may be hundreds of dwarf planets in our Solar System.
When did pluto become a dwarf planet?
Italian astronomer Giuseppe Piazzi discovered Ceres on January 1, 1801 at Palermo. He classified it as a planet, but then it was demoted to an asteroid in the 1850s when other objects in similar orbits were discovered. In 2006, it was promoted as a dwarf planet, a classification it shares with Pluto that is 14 times more massive.
How pluto became a dwarf planet?
Dwarf planets are smaller than the Solar System's smallest planet, Mercury. So far scientists have recorded 3 dwarf planets in our Solar System. They are Pluto, Eris and Ceres.
In 2004 another Kuiper Belt Object was discovered. It is another dwarf planet called Sedna and is only 75% the size of Pluto.
The Kuiper Belt includes Pluto, Haumea, and Makemake, which are considered to be dwarf planets.
Pluto is not the only dwarf planet in our solar system. Ceres, Haumea, Makemake and Eris are officially recognized as dwarf planets, bringing the current total to 5.
There have only been two visits by space probes to dwarf planets. In 2015 NASA's Dawn and New Horizons missions reached Ceres and Pluto.
