• Question: If pluto is no longer a planet (although it has been seen as one in the past) and just a 'large astoroid' then surely other 'large astoroids' in orbit could be planets?

    Asked by monkey24 to Akram, David, Gill, Jack, laurenceharwood on 19 Mar 2012.
    • Photo: Akram Alomainy

      Akram Alomainy answered on 19 Mar 2012:

      Could be and maybe be not … All depend on those scientists who decide … Not really my field so I will leave to the others to answer but great question 🙂

    • Photo: Jack Snape

      Jack Snape answered on 19 Mar 2012:

      Hi 🙂 Good question. Pluto is now known as a ‘dwarf planet’ … Dwarf planets are different from asteroids because they’re a lot bigger than other asteroids closer to the sun. However, there are other dwarf planets, further out than Pluto … it took us longer to find them because they’re further out so we needed to build bigger telescopes to see them.

      There’s a good page on dwarf planets here 🙂

      http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dwarf_planet

    • Photo: Laurence Harwood

      Laurence Harwood answered on 19 Mar 2012:

      I blame the astronomers. They just can’t make their minds up! Actually, they are just like all scientists – we are always changing (we prefer to say “refining”) our ideas

    • Photo: Gill Menzies

      Gill Menzies answered on 20 Mar 2012:

      Not my field either, but not to say I’m not interested. I think a scientific mind is always interested in details and different phenomena – we always want to know how, why, and how not, and why not. We may not always understand fully, but keep on asking ….. 🙂

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