Pluto Is a Planet

Pluto was declassified as a planet on August 24, 2006. It was reclassified as a dwarf planet. The claim is that there are eight planets now and that Neptune is now the farthest planet from the Sun. The reasons for this change, however, are not founded on correct reasoning.

The American Percival Lowell discovered that a large body was affecting the orbits of Uranus and Neptune in 1905. He called it planet X, but his telescope was not powerful enough to find it at well over two billion miles from the sun.

Pluto was discovered on March 13, 1930 by the American Clyde Tombaugh after Lowell passed away in 1916. He used a 13 inch telescope built to complete Lowell's search for a ninth planet. He studied many photographs taken at Lowell Observatory for a week. He discovered the ninth planet Pluto by noticing movement across the stars in the picture that must be closer than the "stationary" stars.

Uranus is the only planet that is named after an ancient Greek god instead of a Roman god like the other planets. It was named after the ancient Greek god of the sky Ouranos. Neptune was named after Neptune, Roman god of the sea. Pluto was directly named after Pluto, the Roman god of the underworld.

The New Horizons Mission launched on January 19, 2006 to study the planet Pluto. It made a six month flyby study of Pluto and its moons in the summer of 2015. It found that the diameter of Pluto is 1,473 miles, which is much bigger than most known objects outside Neptune's orbit. (It seems like the size of Pluto increased according to the New Horizons mission and was bigger than Mercury) This seems to challenge the claim that Pluto is very small. The New Horizons Mission also found Pluto has a very complex array of mountains, valleys, markings that could be rivers, etc.

The interior of Pluto is probably 50 percent to 70 percent rock and 30 percent to 50 percent ice. Some of the rock is silicon. It might also have a liquid ocean in its interior much like the moon of Jupiter Europa. Pluto's surface is a layer of nitrogen, methane, and carbon monoxide. Organic ices might also exist on its surface. It is also expected that some of the core of Pluto is composed of water.

Carbon and water are two of the requirements for life to exist on a planet. Pluto's mass is 0.002 of the mass of the Earth. Its gravity is 0.07 of the gravitational pull of the Earth (the gravity of our Moon is 0.17 of the gravitational pull of the Earth).

The atmosphere of Pluto is probably about 90 percent nitrogen, similar to the Earth's atmosphere, which is about 80 percent nitrogen. One of the other gases is probably methane.

The path of Pluto's orbit around the Sun is closer to the Sun than Neptune for 20 years of the 248 years it takes to go around the Sun. Neptune has a near circular orbit with a perihelion distance of 29.81 AU and a aphelion distance of 30.33 AU from the Sun, while Pluto's distance from the Sun varies from 29.7 AU (2.66 billion miles) to 49.3 AU (4.67 billion miles). An Astronomical Unit, abbreviated AU, is the distance from the Earth to the Sun, which is about 93 million miles. If this means Pluto is not a planet, then Neptune must also not be a planet.

Five Moons of Pluto

There are five moons orbiting Pluto. Their names are Charon, Nix, Hydra, Styx, and Kerberos. Charon is largest by far in size with a diameter of 750 miles. It was discovered in 1978 and has a diameter of 750 miles. Nix and Hydra were discovered by NASA's Hubble space telescope in 2005 while taking photographs in preparation for the New Horizons mission. Kerberos was discovered in 2011 and Styx was discovered in 2012.

The discovery of the celestial body Makemake on March 31, 2005 at Palomar Observatory should not cause Pluto to be declassified to a dwarf planet. There seems to be a claim that Pluto is not a planet because some objects in the Kuiper Belt are bigger than Pluto, but Makemake is only two-thirds the size of Pluto.

Makemake's orbit around the Sun takes 310 years since it is farther from the Sun than Pluto, whose orbit around the Sun takes 248 years. The surface of Makemake is composed of methane, ethane, and tholins. It also might have small amounts of nitrogen. One moon with a diameter of about 110 miles has been discovered orbiting it. Makemake might also be considered a planet.

Hubble Telescope Photo of Makemake And Moon

Another celestial body was discovered that is probably a little smaller than Pluto was named Eris. It was discovered on January 5, 2005 at Palomar Observatory. Eris' distance from the Sun varies from 38 to 98 Astronomical Units. Pluto's distance from the Sun varies from 29 to 49 AU, so it is usually much closer to the Sun than Eris.

Eris has one moon named Dysnomia. It probably has the same surface composition as Pluto. Its orbital period is 558 years. It could also be considered a planet.

Haumea was discovered in 2004 at Palomar Observatory. Its surface is probably 66 percent to 80 percent crystalline ice. It could have hydrogen cyanide or copper potassium cyanide on its surface. Organic ices are also considered as a possibility of being on its surface. It has one moon orbiting it.

Sedna is another celestial body in the Kuiper Belt that was discovered in March 2004 and is 75 percent of the size of Pluto. It was named after an Eskimo goddess who lives at the bottom of the Arctic ocean. But it has an eccentric orbit that ranges from 8 billion miles from the Sun to 84 billion miles from the Sun. It takes about 10,500 years to go around the Sun.

The claim that Pluto is not a planet because there are a lot of celestial bodies near it is wrong. The Kuiper Belt is probably massive. It is expected to be located just outside the orbit of Neptune to about 50 AU from the Sun, or about 20 AU in diameter. The only celestial bodies in the Kuiper Belt discovered so far are that are big are Eris, Haumea, Sedna, and Makemake, and they are very far from Pluto.

The asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter has many many asteroids including the dwarf planet Ceres. But the distance between Mars and Jupiter is just 3.62 AU, or about 342,000,000 miles.

This distance between Mars and Jupiter is usually much less than the current distance from the Sun of about 52 AU from the Sun of Makemake, distance from the Sun range of 38 AU to 98 AU of Eris, and distance from the Sun of 34 AU to 51 AU of Haumea compared to the distance from the Sun of 29 AU to 49 AU of Pluto.

The main asteroid belt is between Mars and Jupiter. It contains billions of asteroids that are composed of rock and stone. The largest is the dwarf planet Ceres. It has a diameter of 590 miles. There are more than 200 asteroids with a diameter greater than 60 miles.

Ceres has been considered to be a planet before and still is considered to be a planet by several astronomers. The general opinion is that it is only a dwarf planet because its orbit shares that of many other asteroids in the Main asteroid Belt.

There are also many asteroids outside the main asteroid belt. The Earth is still a planet even though it has at least 10,000 Near Earth Asteroids (NEAs) that are known to come very close to Earth. In fact, the Earth has been hit at least two times by an asteroid in the past few years. President Trump has recommended a space unit of the armed forces that will monitor, study, and try to locate any asteroids that are potentially dangerous.

Pluto, with its elaborate markings that could be rivers, mountains, valleys, etc. seems that it should be a planet. It is expected that it travels through the Kuiper Belt at least some of the time, but not much is known about the Kuiper Belt. The objects that are claimed to be in Pluto's path are usually several AUs from it.