Even though Pluto is a dwarf planet, and no longer officially a planet, it’ll still be a fascinating target for study. And that’s why NASA has sent their New Horizons spacecraft off to visit it. New Horizons will reach Pluto in July 2015, and capture the first close-up images of t...
The International Astronomical Union (IAU), the body that is responsible for naming and classifying objects in the cosmos, has just announced that Pluto has been reclassified as a major planet. That's right, the little dwarf will be rejoining the ranks of Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, ...
It's not impossible to imagine a future, though, where astronomers discover a large enough object in the distant Solar System that could qualify for planethood status. Then our Solar System would have 9 planets again. Even though Pluto is a dwarf planet, and no longer officially a planet, ...
A 2017 proposal defined a planet as "a round object in space that's smaller than a star." This would make Pluto a planet again, but it would do the same to the Earth's moon as well as many other moons in the solar system, and bring the total number of officially recognized planets...
In the center-left of Tombaugh Regio is a very smooth region unofficially known by the New Horizons team as "Sputnik Planum," after Earth's first artificial satellite,Sputnik. This region of Pluto's surface lacks craters caused by meteorite impacts, suggesting that the area is, on a geologic...
A New Effort to Reinstate Pluto as a Planet December 10, 2021 The International Astronomical Union (IAU) has a very strict definition of the word "planet".According to the definition – drafted, tweaked, and agreed upon in August 2006 – an astronomical body is officially a planet if it or...
Again this illustrates that planetary bodies from a geophysical perspective includes more than just the IAU planets. Comparative planetology will include planets, dwarf planets and spheroidal moons. And the IAU definition will not stop researchers from referring to the planetary nature of these bodies....
It's somewhat ironic that a 2002 paper of his (and Levison) on the dynamic definition provided a major boost to start the SCIENTIFIC process that ultimately resulted in Pluto being OFFICIALLY declared as "not a planet". "Stern and Levison (2002) remarked that some bodies in the solar system...
Since the recording of this show, dwarf planet 2003 UB313 has been officially named Eris, and its moon is Dysnomia Transcript Transcript: Pluto’s Planetary Identity Crisis Download the transcript Fraser Cain: If we talked to any astronomer, anyone in the space industry this last couple of mo...
Pluto was officially labeled the ninth planet by the International Astronomical Union in 1930 and named for the Roman god of the underworld. It was the first and only planet to be discovered by an American, Clyde W. Tombaugh. It has since been reclassified as a Dwarf Planet along with Eris...