This entry is sponsored by All Science Projects, a guide to help your child produce a great science project.

Image of Pluto and Charon


Well, it looks like the sensors we’ve aimed into space have finally provided astronomers with enough data to make the judgment: Pluto doesn’t qualify as a planet.

Discovered in 1930, Pluto was thought to be about the size of the Earth (not true, it’s about ~2300 kilometers in diameter) and was thus conferred planet status. As our ability to observe has increased in the 20th and 21st centuries, it’s now apparent that Pluto is one of many such objects in the Kuiper belt at the edge of the solar system.

It’s a good that we’re able to reassess our hypothesises and judgments as new information becomes available. Meanwhile, the hot stock tip of the day: Buy science textbook publishers. (And never take stock advice from anyone, especially me.) What is Pluto now? It’s either a “dwarf planet” or the prototype of a “plutonian object” according to the International Astronomical Union.

Farewell planet Pluto, we hardly knew ya.

Need to complete a science project? All Science Projects can help.

Technorati Tags: Science | Astronomy | Pluto