Discuss why Pluto was considered a planet and what caused its removal from the ranks of planethood. What do you think-a planet or not
Discuss why Pluto was considered a planet and what caused its removal from the ranks of planethood. What do you think-a planet or not?
(Min 250 words)
Answer:
Introduction:
The word "planet" comes from the Greek word "planets," which means wanderer. Originally, the planets were those five objects that could be seen with the unaided eye. That is because it is possible to see those 4 bodies moving across the night sky. Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter, and Saturn are their names.
Earth was officially recognised as a planet once the heliocentric hypothesis had gained acceptance.
William Herschel was observing the night sky in 1781 when he noticed a moving object, which turned out to be Uranus, which was first thought to be George's Planet. It was acknowledged that it was a planet because it orbited the Sun as well. Herschel was aware that Uranus was not a comet, and the notion that there could be other bodies orbiting the Sun was a very recent one (comets were discovered to orbit the Sun only 30 years prior). No justification existed for him to categorise it differently.
Detailed Explanation:
Following the discovery of Ceres in 1801, it became evident that there are three different classes of solar system objects: planets, comets, and asteroids.
Neptune was discovered in 1846 thanks to variations in Uranus' orbit. It was determined that another planet was present since astronomers had a decent concept of how big Neptune would be and it was obvious that it was not an asteroid or a comet.
So there were four different categories of bodies in the Solar System in 1930, the year Pluto was discovered:
- The Sun,
- 8 planets (Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune), about 100 asteroids (including Ceres, Pallas, Juno, and Vesta, all of which orbit between Mars and Jupiter),
- a large number of comets
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