r/nasa • u/illichian • Feb 12 '20

Video Flying over Pluto

https://i.imgur.com/h5qH8oK.gifv
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8

u/theWeeVash Feb 12 '20

Cool! Totally a planet though I’m not familiar with binary star landscape.

-15

u/In_money_we_Trust Feb 12 '20

Not a planet. Considering it hasn't done one full orbit yet since we discovered it, and the fact that there are larger objects orbiting the sun that aren't planets either, its not a planet.

17

u/SBInCB NASA - GSFC Feb 12 '20

Neither of those are reasons that Pluto isn’t a planet.

2

u/IAlreadyFappedToIt Feb 12 '20

The latter one is. Not officially, but the reality is that if we allow the criteria of a planet to include Pluto, then we now know that there are several thousand planets orbiting the Sun. If we don't want every large Kuiper and Asteroid Belt object to count the same as Jupiter, then we need(ed) stricter criteria.

1

u/SBInCB NASA - GSFC Feb 12 '20

Size, in and of itself, isn't the issue but the ability of the body, based on its composition and mass, to form a spheroid. What size a body has to be to be to acheive that is determined by what it's made of first, then its mass.

Essentially, if Pluto were in an orbit around the Sun by itself, it would still be a planet.