Pluto: A Dwarf Planet

For years, astronomers have debated if Pluto is a planet or not. Pluto has been taken off the list of planets, and has now been classified as a Dwarf Planet. According to IAU.org, “A dwarf planet is classified as an object in orbit around the Sun that is large enough to have its own gravity pull itself into a round shape... A dwarf planet may also orbit in a zone that has many other objects in it.” Pluto now falls into the dwarf planet category because of its size and because it is in a zone of other same-sized objects known as the trans neptunian region. After examining research and data, I have personally come to the conclusion that Pluto is not a planet. According to the International Astronomical Union, in order to be considered a planet, …show more content…
There is hope that Pluto crashes into enough of them that it gains mass and more gravity to grow and check off that final requirement of planets. In conclusion, Pluto may not be a planet now but will be in the future. Because of its size and ability to grow, Pluto is currently not classified as a regular planet. Pluto checks off two of the terms of being a planet. It orbits the Earth in a regular pattern, and it is also bigger than the minimum mass of being able to form a spherical shape. Because of its miniature or ‘dwarf’ size, it is unable to grow in mass meaning it does not check off the final requirement of being a planet. The question for this paper is in the present tense and technically, it is not a regular planet because it does not meet all three of the qualifications. Though, in the future it may become a regular planet if it increases its mass. Finding and researching Pluto and the other dwarf planets was and still is a tremendous discovery and will continue to change thoughts and ideas of what space can be and what it is