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Pluto (minor-planet designation: 134340 Pluto) is a dwarf planet in the Kuiper belt, a ring of bodies beyond the orbit of Neptune. It is the ninth-largest and tenth-most-massive known object to directly orbit the Sun. It is the largest known trans-Neptunian object by volume, by a small margin, but is less massive than Eris.
Many TNOs are often just assumed to have Pluto's density of 2.0 g/cm 3, but it is just as likely that they have a comet-like density of only 0.5 g/cm 3. [ 4 ] For example, if a TNO is incorrectly assumed to have a mass of 3.59 × 10 20 kg based on a radius of 350 km with a density of 2 g/cm 3 but is later discovered to have a radius of only 175 ...
Only one of them – Pluto – has been observed in enough detail to verify that its current shape fits what would be expected from hydrostatic equilibrium. [53] Ceres is close to equilibrium, but some gravitational anomalies remain unexplained. [54] Eris is generally assumed to be a dwarf planet because it is more massive than Pluto.
A growing number of astronomers argued for Pluto to be declassified as a planet, because many similar objects approaching its size had been found in the same region of the Solar System (the Kuiper belt) during the 1990s and early 2000s. Pluto was found to be just one "small" body in a population of thousands. [195]
For 76 years, Pluto was considered our solar system's ninth planet — so, what caused it to lose its status?
Pluto was considered a planet up until 2006, when researchers at the International Astronomical Union voted to "demote" it to dwarf planet.
For 76 years, Pluto was considered out solar system's ninth planet. So what caused it to lose its planetary status? Find out on this episode of "Space, Down to Earth"!
Under the name Pluto, the god appears in other myths in a secondary role, mostly as the possessor of a quest-object, and especially in the descent of Orpheus or other heroes to the underworld. [3] Plūtō ([ˈpluːtoː]; genitive Plūtōnis) is the Latinized form of the Greek Plouton.