Pluto's demotion was partially caused by us getting better at spotting planets (or "dwarf planets," if you prefer). In the early 2000s, astronomers identified Haumea, Eris, Makemake, and other balls that orbit our sun. They'd all have to be call "planets" if the older definition ...
After being officially discovered by Clyde Tombaugh in 1930, Pluto spent close to a century being thought of as the ninth planet of our Solar System. In 2006, it wasreclassified as a “dwarf planet”due to the discovery of other Trans-Neptunian Objects (TNOs) of comparable size. However, ...
The Kuiper Belt (NASA Overview) Dwarf Planets (NASA Overview) Eris, formerly 2003 UB313 –from the discoverers Sedna Oort Cloud (NASA overview) Since the recording of this show, dwarf planet 2003 UB313 has been officially named Eris, and its moon is Dysnomia Transcript Transcript: Pluto’s...
Their study was based on images of the dwarf(矮小的) planet’s surface as well as computer models of the subsurface. “When Pluto was forming, new material would have been coming in and impacting its surface,” Bierson said. “Each impact is like an explosion that would warm the nearby ...
It's time to get past old semantics arguments and realize that our solar system is full of amazing objects we should visit.
the denser of the two dwarf planets. According to Sicardy and his team the increased density of Eris, “indicates that Eris is mainly composed of rocky material, with a relatively thin ice mantle.” Since Pluto’s density indicates it comprised of about equal parts ice and rock, Eris’s ...
In the year 2006, the International Astronomical Union (IAU) took up a debate using a “democratic process” to accept a new definition of planet, define a new type – dwarf planet and then set everything else as “Small Bodies.” If your head is spinning with planets, you are not ...