Transcript Pluto, The Dead Planet

Pluto, The Dead Planet
By Mark Maglione
Pluto

The question that I received is why the
planet Pluto is no longer a recognized
planet in our soar system.
Question 1

What percentage of astronomers made
the decision to no longer consider Pluto a
planet?
Question 2

The second question that I wanted to
know is when Pluto was declared a planet,
when Pluto was taken off the list of
planets, and how long this debate over
whether it is a planet has been going on.
Question 3

Why is Pluto no longer a planet? I wanted
to know the exact reasoning here of why it
was taken off of the list.
Relationship to the Standards

Question 3 relates to Standard 4: The
Physical Setting, but more specifically Key
1: The earth and celestial phenomena can
be described by principles of relative
motion and perspective. This is directly
related to this key because Pluto is in
space and is associated with celestial
phenomena.
Relationship to Standards cont.

Question 1 does not link to any standard
exactly, but it does pose a few questions.
The fact that so few astronomers voted on
this, how the entire world and scientific
community accepting this is a little hazy.
Schools are changing curriculums based
on scientific proof. With such a small
percentage of scientists making the
decision, what are schools supposed to
follow?
Answers to the Questions

Question 1- Only 424 astronomers voted
on whether or not Pluto should be a
planet. This is only 5% of the worlds
astronomers.
Answers to the Questions cont.

Question 2- Pluto was discovered in 1930
by Clyde W. Tombaugh by luck. The
debate over whether it should be
considered a planet started in 2003 when
Eris a body in space that was bigger than
Pluto but farther away from the sun was
discovered. Pluto was declared not a
planet on August 24th 2006.
Answers to the Questions cont.

Question 3- Pluto is no longer considered a
planet because at the International Astronomical
Union in Prague, the criteria of a planet was
changed. A full-fledged planet is an object that
orbits the sun and is large enough to have
become round due to the force of its own gravity.
In addition, a planet has to dominate the
neighborhood around its orbit. Its’ moon was half
the size of Pluto and compared to the other 8
planets this moon was huge. So it was
determined that Pluto did not ‘dominate’ its’
neighborhood.
Sources

BBC News. 24 August 2006. BBC News.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/in_depth/5282440.stm
[10 October 2007].

Britt, Robert Roy. 24 August 2006.MSNBC.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/14489259/ [10 October 2007].

CBS/AP. 24 August 2006. CBS News.
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2006/08/24/tech/main1931722.shtml
[10 October 2007].

Inman, Mason. 24 August 2006. National Geographic.
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2006/08/060824-plutoplanet.html [10 October 2007].

Wikipedia. 10 October 2007. Wikipedia Foundation.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pluto[10 October 2007].