Is+pluto+still+a+planet%3F
No. Pluto is now considered a dwarf planet by both the International Astronomical Union and NASA.
There's been debate about its status as a planet for years now, and it was officially reclassified in 2006. The problem is mostly a definitional one: Astronomers have a general idea of what is and isn't a planet, but any definition they try to concoct ends up excluding bodies that are considered planets, or more often, including bodies that aren't considered planets.
Astronomers realized that if they were to continue using the old definition, as laurele described, they would have to add a handful of new planets to our solar system's list. Beyond that, they predicted that they'd need to continually add more planets to the list as our equipment continually became more sensitive, because we tend to find new spherical bodies orbiting the Sun.
In the end the best definition they could come up with was one that excluded Pluto. They decided that in order to be considered a planet, a body must be orbiting the Sun, must be pulled into a shape of hydrostatic equilibrium by its own gravity, and must have cleared the neighborhood around its orbit. In other words, it needs to have become the biggest kid on the block - having swept up all other major bodies in it's orbit. Since Pluto hasn't done this, it had to be demoted to a dwarf planet.
Yes, Pluto most certainly is still a planet in spite of a vote by four percent of the International Astronomical Union, most of whom are not planetary scientists. Their decision was immediately rejected by over 300 professional astronomers in a petition led by Dr. Alan Stern, Principal Investigator of NASA's New Horizons mission to Pluto. In the words of my astronomy instructor Al Witzgall, a planet is "a non-self-luminous spheroidal object in orbit around a star." If an object has attained hydrostatic equilibrium, meaning it has enough self gravity to pull itself into a round shape, then it's a planet because it has geological and meteorological processes just like the larger planets do.
it's not a plannt, not even a dwarf plannet, it was called something else when I was watching a doc. on it a few months ago, I forgot, but U'm sure it could be looked up.(I'm to lazy right now, I'll just wait till the doc. comes on XD).
no not at all. about 5-8 years ago it was deemed "too small" to be a planet.
I don't know?
