Characteristics Of A Dwarf Planet

On February 18th, 1930 the dwarf planet known as Pluto was discovered! It was discovered by an astronomer named Clyde Tombaugh and named by an 11-year-old girl. It was the farthest planet and the smallest. However when it was discovered it was named a planet because they did not have much information about it. They assumed it was a planet. It looked like a planet so they thought it was a planet. 76 years after Pluto was discovered on August 24th, 2006 astronomers demoted Pluto from planet status to dwarf planet. Till this day many people still claim Pluto to be a planet. People still do not know the difference between dwarf planets and regular planets and with these characteristics you realize that Pluto should not have been considered a planet at all.

What is a Dwarf Planet? …show more content…
There is only one key difference between a planet and a Dwarf Planet. To answer the question of what a dwarf planet is we must realize what a dwarf planet is not. A planet is defined in three ways, 1. It is in orbit around a star, 2. It is spherical, 3. It is not a satellite, 4. It has cleared the neighborhood around its orbit. A dwarf planet must follow steps 1, 2, and 3 however they do not follow number 4. To clear the neighborhood means to clear the area around its orbit. When they were defining a planet this was a major point, which made astronomers determine Pluto to not be a planet. Pluto is not the only dwarf planet; there are four other known dwarf planets. They are Eris, Haumea, Makemake, and Ceres. Ceres was the first dwarf planet that was