Few days ago, my daughter came home and told me about what she learned from school. This week, she learned about solar system. And she mentioned that there are eight planets in our solar system. I asked her to mention the name of those planets. She did it. I was so surprise that she learned a lot and fast. Then I asked her about Pluto. Why she did not mention about it. She said that Pluto is not a planet anymore. Then I asked why Pluto is not a planet anymore.
There are officially, eight planets in the solar system. Pluto is not a planet because it does not have the complete qualification to be called as a planet. A planet is :
# needs to be in orbit around the Sun
# needs to have enough gravity to pull itself into a spherical shape
# needs to have "cleared the neighborhood" of its orbit
A planet has the dominant gravitational body in their orbit in the Solar System. As they interact with other, smaller objects, they either consume them, or sling them away with their gravity. But is only 0.07 times the mass of the other objects in its orbit. That's why Pluto is no longer classified as a planet.
But my daughter explained to me with the easier answer. She said that Pluto cut the line in the solar system, that's why it's not a planet anymore...
Oooow.... I should thank my daughter about this. If she did not mentioned about it, I probably will never know about this. :P
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