Hello Readers,
When I was growing up, our solar system was made of 9 planets, owing to the discovery of Pluto – our ninth planet by Clyde Tombaugh on 18th February 1930. Then suddenly in 2006, scientists decided that Pluto no longer deserves to be a planet and demoted it to a ‘dwarf status’.
Do you want to know what happened?
There are 3 parameters to meet to get into the planet club:
· to be in an orbit around the Sun.
· to have sufficient mass and exert self-gravity to maintain its ellipsoid shape.
· to have a clear orbit which means it does not share its orbit with any other celestial body.
As it turns out, Pluto met the first two criteria but did not have a clear orbit. From 2000 to 2005, a lot of other planets were discovered in the Kuiper Belt Orbit of which Pluto is a part of. Their discovery strengthened the decision to demote Pluto to the status of a dwarf planet.
But planet or dwarf planet, Pluto is a part of our solar system and it is its birthday today. Let us all celebrate it by reading more about it. You can also bring out your telescopes and have a go at our amazing universe.
Happy Birthday Pluto!
Priyanka
www.thechildrenspost.com
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