Is Pluto considered a planet?

• Is Pluto a planet? 
• Learn about Pluto’s characteristics and environment.
• Find out who discovered Pluto and what kind of heavenly body it is.

Is Pluto a planet? Since 1930, the solar system has included several planets. In that year an American scientist detected the presence of a sky blue body in the Kuiper belt, a finding that marked a before and after in the way of studying the solar system.

Over time, experts in astrophysics have dedicated themselves to expanding their knowledge about the planets, their characteristics how to categorize different celestial bodies.

What is pluto?

Pluto is a celestial body located in our solar system. It was discovered for the first time in 1930, the year in which it was officially considered part of the solar system and was declared the ninth planet. It is located in the Kuiper Belt, a region beyond the orbit of Neptune.

Pluto is the largest object in this region, and is made up of an extremely cold surface, where temperatures can range between -240 and -218 degrees Celsius. Nitrogen ice, methane and carbon monoxide are found in the atmosphere. It has five moons: Charon, Nix, Hydra, Kerberos and Styx.

Pluto’s characteristics

Pluto is much smaller than the other eight planets in the solar system, with a diameter of 1476 miles. In fact, it is even smaller than Earth’s moon. Its orbit is elliptical and eccentric, that is, its distance from the sun varies throughout its orbit.

Pluto takes approximately 248 earth years to go around the sun. Its surface is composed mainly of nitrogen ice, methane and carbon monoxide, but some studies say that there are also rocks and other organic materials on it.

When was Pluto discovered?

Pluto was discovered on February 18, 1930 by astronomer Clyde Tombaugh who, at the time, was working at the Lowell Observatory in Flagstaff, Arizona. He was searching for a hypothetical ‘Planet X’, which could be found near the orbit of Neptune.

However, he soon found an object moving across the sky. It had a different position every night, a fact that indicated that it was orbiting the sun. After a while, Tombaugh confirmed that he had discovered a new planet: Pluto.

Is Pluto a planet?

For many years, Pluto was considered one of the nine planets in our solar system. Since its discovery, Pluto has been carefully studied by astronomers, who came to the conclusion that its characteristics were very different from those of other eight planets so the International Astronomical Union determined in 2006 that this celestial body would be considered a dwarf planet.

Dwarf planets must meet certain criteria, such as orbiting the sun, having enough mass that gravity has turned it into a spherical body, and that there are other objects in its orbit that are of significant size. Thus, Pluto joined other dwarf planets such as Eris, Haumea and Ceres.