Overview:\u00a0 Discovery of a New Planet<\/b>
\nThe dwarf planet Pluto has always been a mystery.\u00a0 In the 19th century, the planets Uranus and Neptune were discovered.\u00a0 However, there were questions about the orbit of Neptune that led astronomers to suspect the existence of an unknown planet they called Planet X.\u00a0 A very young astronomer named Clyde Tombaugh just started working at Lowell Observatory, and he was assigned to survey pictures taken from the telescope to see if any objects were moving strangely.\u00a0 By coincidence, he discovered a possible planet in 1930, which was later called Pluto.\u00a0 It was named Pluto for the Roman god of the underworld, and also for the founder of the observatory, Percival Lowell.<\/p>\n
Was Pluto Planet X?<\/b>
\nThe discovery of another planet was exciting news to everyone, even if that planet took over two hundred years to travel around the Sun.\u00a0 When it was first discovered, astronomers thought it was about the same size as Earth.\u00a0 As more information about the planet was learned, the estimates of the planet’s size kept shrinking.\u00a0 The most recent estimates of the size of Pluto put it at about half the size of Mercury, the closest planet to the Sun.\u00a0 Other measurements of the light reflected from Pluto suggest that it is probably made of frozen methane gas.\u00a0 It is too small and light to account for all the movement in Neptune’s orbit caused by Planet X.<\/p>\n
What Else is Out There?<\/b>
\nAstronomers are making many new discoveries about the Solar System using more powerful telescopes on Earth and in space.\u00a0 Beyond the orbit of Neptune, at over fifty times the distance between the Earth and the Sun (the astronomical unit), a whole group of icy objects orbits the Sun.\u00a0 These objects are called the Kuiper Belt. \u00a0It is larger than the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter, and consists of icy rocks and planetoids made of frozen gases.<\/p>\n
What Is a Planet Anyway?<\/b>
\nIn 2005, a team of astronomers discovered an object in the Kuiper Belt that was the same size or larger than Pluto.\u00a0 It consisted of frozen gases and rock, and was probably heavier than Pluto.\u00a0 That created a dilemma for scientists.\u00a0 Just how many planets are there in the solar system?\u00a0 Are there eight, or nine, or even more?\u00a0 Astronomers decided on a definition of “planet” based on three questions:\u00a0 Does the object orbit the Sun?\u00a0 Does the object have enough gravity to form a spheroid? Is the object unique in its orbit as the largest body in its orbit?<\/p>\n
Is Pluto a Planet?<\/b>
\nPluto qualifies under the first two questions.\u00a0 It orbits the Sun on its own, and it is the right shape.\u00a0 The third question is the problem for Pluto, the asteroid Ceres as the largest in the belt between Mars and Jupiter, as well as the other objects in the Kuiper Belt.\u00a0 The reason relates to the theories about how planets are formed. \u00a0\u00a0Larger objects have enough gravity to form a spheroid, and the spheroid tends to collect enough matter around it in its orbit, so that it is the most dense object in its orbit, sweeping the area of everything around it. Pluto fails the test, and it is now called a “dwarf planet.”\u00a0 It still has a few surprises, though, including at least four moons of its own, one of them first seen in 2011 with the Hubble Space Telescope.\u00a0 In 2015, the flyby of the New Horizons space probe will provide the first clear pictures of Pluto and its neighborhood.<\/p>\n
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