While I visited several schools and read my children’s book Rylee The Young Rocketeer, one very, bright student asked the question “why is Pluto considered a dwarf planet”?
So, I thought this would make a great post.
In Rylee The Young Rocketeer, Rylee dreams of one day traveling to the Moon and Mars. She also talks about the other planets and their distance from the Sun.
When I wrote the story, even though Pluto is no longer considered a planet, I wanted to include it because in the past it was and now it has been downgraded to a “dwarf planet”.
Pluto is a dwarf planet that lies in the Kuiper Belt, an area full of icy bodies and other dwarf planets out past Neptune. Pluto is very small, only about half the width of the United States and its biggest moon Charon is about half the size of Pluto.
Almost all the planets travel around the Sun in nearly perfect circles. But not Pluto. It takes an oval-shaped path with the Sun nowhere near its center.
Criteria for a full-size planet:
1. It is in orbit around the Sun.
2. It has sufficient mass to assume a nearly round shape.
3. It has “cleared the neighborhood” around its orbit.
Pluto meets only two of these criteria, losing out on the third.
So, any large body that does not meet these criteria is now classified as a “dwarf planet”, and that includes Pluto.
Long explanation and not so easy to explain to a 2nd grade student.
Use Coupon Code NEWRELEASE for a 10% discount at checkout!
