Transcript Pluto: Planet X - Spring Branch ISD

Pluto: Planet X
Kelly Carpenter
Cece Pringle
Lucie Gulick
Discovery
Found on February 18, 1930 by Clyde
Tombaugh
Name
Named after Greek god of the dead by
an 11-year-old girl in Oxford,
England.
Creation Theory
Thought to have once been a piece of
Neptune that broke off when the
planets were forming
Distance from the Sun & Orbit
• 3,666 million miles from the sun
• Pluto’s the farthest planet from our sun
• One day on Pluto is 153.28 hours longthe equivalent of 6 Earth days
Size
• Diameter of 2,445 km
• Mass of 0.0125^24 kg
• Smallest planet in the solar system
Makeup
Dirty, desolate iceball of frozen gases
with little rocky substance
Other Info
• Gravity: 0.58
• Temperature: -230 degrees Celsius
• Atmosphere: Methane and Nitrogen
• 3 moons
• No rings
Pluto’s Moon; Charon
• Discovered in 1978
• Named after the Greek god who
carried souls to the underworld
across the river Styx
Pluto’s Other Moons
• Pluto has 2 other moons called Nix
and Hydra
• Nix is named for the Titan goddess of
darkness
• Hydra is named after the sea
monster defeated by the hero
Peruses
Death
• On August 24, 2006 the IAU declared
Pluto was no longer a true planet,
but a dwarf planet.
Who are the IAU & Why They
Hatin’ on Pluto?
The IAU is the International Astronomical Union.
They define a planet according to these 3 rules:
1) It needs to be in orbit around the Sun
2) It needs to have enough gravity to pull itself into
a spherical shape
3) It needs to have “cleared the neighborhood” of
its orbit
Pluto doesn’t conform to the third rule.
What Does the 3rd Rule Mean?
As planets form and interact with other,
smaller objects (like asteroids or
meteors), they either consume them or
sling them away with their gravity. Pluto is
isn’t big enough to get rid of all the stuff
floating around in its orbit like the rest of
the planets.
WTF?!?!
We know, we know. Now we have only 8
planets in our solar system. If you want to
remember the order of the planets, you’ll
have to say something other than ‘My
Very Educated Mother Just Served Us Nine
Pickles”. We suggest you say your mother
served you noodles.
So… What Does This Change?
Nothing, really. It means we now have 8
planets instead of 9 now, but that’s not life
changing for anybody. However, if you
believe Pluto is still a planet, you can join
a Facebook group to protest and try to
bring it back. However, the chances are
pretty good that in 100 years, nobody will
remember that Pluto was a planet.
Works Cited
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“Earth Science” by Tarbuck & Lutgens
http://nssdc.gsfc.nasa.gov
http://www.universetoday.com
http://www.astro.com
http://raincoaster.files.wordpress.com
http://www.markstivers.com