Pluto still exist ?

In childhood, we learnt in our Geography books that Pluto is the youngest and tiniest planet among the entire nine planets of the Solar system.

Pluto is located almost 3.6 billion miles away from the Sun.

This tiny planet used to revolve on its orbit with no one to touch.

The content will discuss the whereabouts of Pluto.

Yes, once Pluto was a member of the solar family.

The little planet was displayed in the planetariums and in science books.

Unfortunately, the lifetime of Pluto was very short. In less than 80 years of the official presence, the planet lost its title. 

Pluto was discovered as 'Planet X' by Clyde Tombaugh, an American astronomer in 1930.

Pluto received over 1000 proposals from different countries for its nomenclature.

Finally, the planet was named as Pluto, after the name of the underworld Greek God.

The name was suggested by a small 11-year old girl from England. Since then, scientists kept an eye on Pluto for its mass.

Initially, the mass of Pluto was calculated to be equal to that of Earth.

Later, in 1948 scientists estimated the mass to be close to that of Mars.

Finally, in 1978, Charon, Pluto's largest moon, was discovered.

That time, scientists found out that the actual mass was hardly 0.2% of that of our Earth.

Details of Pluto:

Name: Pluto
Mass: 0.17 Moons
Diameter: 2, 372 km
Orbit Distance: 5,874,000,000 km
Orbit Period: 248 years
Surface Temperature: -229˚ C
Discovery Date: February 18, 1930
Discovered by: Clyde W. Tombaugh
Number of Moons: 5 – Charon, Nix, Hydra, P4 and P5

In the next few years, things were stagnant as they were before.

Suddenly, with the outbreak of advanced space-based technology and observations, an upheaval came.

Kuiper Belt, a collection of celestial beings, was discovered in 1992.

In this discovery, the existence of around 70,000 icy bodies came to vision with the same composition and size as Pluto.

This discovery triggered the question of whether Pluto is a planet.

Then, in 2005, the discovery of Eris, a trans-Neptunian object, changed the whole idea.

Eris was bigger than Pluto, and the orbit was more extensive than Pluto's orbit.

Scientists were more confused about whether Pluto was really a planet or just a spatial being that functions like a planet.

The International Astronomical Union (IAU) Assembly was organized in 2006 on August 24.

The main motto of the union was to present the rules for a celestial object to qualify as a planet. Researchers laid three conditions,

1. The object needs to be in orbit around the Sun.
2. The object must possess enough gravitational power to pull itself into a spherical shape.
3. The object must have ‘cleared the neighbourhood’ of its orbit.

Unfortunately, Pluto did not meet the third one.

Thus, Pluto could not qualify to be a planet. Any planet that meets the first two criteria is called a dwarf planet.

This way, Pluto has earned the title of a Dwarf Planet.