Growing up with Pluto being known as the ninth planet, I’m interested in Pluto, its uniqueness and why it was revoked of the prestigious planetary title.
The discovery of other planetary objects in the outer solar system today known as dwarf planets made the switch of Pluto’s classification from a planet to a dwarf planet. These dwarf planets were about the same size of Pluto and has certain criteria to uphold. Dwarf planets has to orbit the sun, it has to have enough mass so gravity could pull its shape into a spherical object and it has to have cleared its orbit from smaller objects. Eris is the largest dwarf planet with Pluto coming in at a close second.
After the New Horizons’ mission, several characteristics of Pluto were discovered which made Pluto one of the most interesting planetary objects in the solar system. Pluto’s small size and distance from the sun made scientists believe that Pluto’s core will be heatless and Pluto would be geologically dead. They could not be more wrong. Pluto does not have a lot of craters hinting toward its young surface and/or geological activity. Pluto has a thin atmosphere with low atmospheric pressure. Pluto’s distance from the sun explains why it is mostly covered in ice. Pluto has ice volcanos, ice mountains, frozen lakes and actually has an atmosphere as the New Horizons mission picked up signs of dust devils, tornados and haze clouds on Pluto’s surface. For me, however the most interesting thing about Pluto is its frozen ocean and what lies beneath all that ice. Maybe there is a whole new world up for discovery?!
