First, let’s talk about what is a planet. According to the International Astronomical Union (IAU), a planet is a sphere-shaped object that orbits the Sun. It must be large enough to have its own gravity make it round, and it must have cleared its neighbourhood of other smaller objects.
Pluto is a planet
Pluto is a dwarf planet that orbits the Sun. It is also the largest object in the Kuiper Belt, a ring of bodies beyond Neptune’s orbit. This belt is home to thousands of dwarf planets, each only slightly larger than Pluto. This belt formed early in the Solar System’s history, around 4.5 billion years ago.
Pluto was first discovered in 1930 and immediately hailed as the ninth planet. However, it later emerged that it was much smaller than expected. Later, after the discovery of other Kuiper belt objects and the scattered disk object Eris, its planetary status came into question. The International Astronomical Union later redefined the word planet, but many planetary astronomers still consider Pluto a planet.
Pluto has a tenuous atmosphere that consists of nitrogen and methane. It is almost a million times thinner than Earth’s atmosphere, so its atmosphere is unlikely to sustain any life. Its surface pressure is only one hundredth of the atmospheric pressure on Earth. However, Pluto’s atmosphere is highly likely to remain gaseous.
Like other planets, Pluto has irregular orbits around the Sun. Its rotation period is about six and a half Earth days. It also exhibits retrograde rotation, meaning it spins from east to west. Pluto has five known moons, and their formation might have occurred from a collision with a similar-sized body.
In 2006, the International Astronomical Union (IAU) reclassified Pluto from planet to dwarf planet. This demotion caused widespread controversy and anger among astronomers. Some even issued death threats to astronomers who were opposed to the demotion of Pluto.
It orbits the sun
The reason planets orbit the Sun is due to their own specific speed. This speed is determined by the mass of the planet times the distance from the Sun. As the distance increases, the speed of the planet decreases. But, this does not mean that a planet cannot travel at the same speed as the Sun.
The orbital period of a planet is the time it takes for the planet to complete a full orbit around the sun. For example, the Earth completes one orbit around the sun every 365 days. However, the orbital periods of planets far away from the sun are much longer. For instance, Neptune takes 165 years to orbit the sun. Furthermore, each orbit has its own eccentricity. The eccentricity of Earth’s orbit is zero, whereas that of Neptune’s is 1.69×1030 kg. Mercury’s eccentricity is one of the highest of all planets in the solar system.
In the beginning, the Solar System was formed from a spinning disk of dust and gas. This disk formed around the Sun. The planets then formed from this spinning disk. The planets continued to rotate around the Sun due to the influence of gravity. As the planets spun around the Sun, they accumulated dust particles together. Eventually, the dust particles accumulated into planet-sized objects. The movement of planets depends on the gravitational attraction of the Sun, which is the only thing keeping them in orbit.
The heliocentric system was later developed to better explain the motion of the planets and allow for better predictions of their future positions. Even though the heliocentric system allowed for more accurate predictions, it did not change the fact that planets rotate in circular orbits at a constant speed. Newton also discovered that the planets orbit the Sun through the force of gravitation.
It has a spherical shape
A planet has a spherically shaped orbit around the Sun. Because planets are massive objects, they gravitate toward the most compact shape. The shape of the earth is slightly squashed, but all of the other planets are roughly spherical.
The spherical shape of a planet is a result of the gravitational force that pulls a planet into a sphere. A sphere contains the greatest volume for the smallest surface area. Gravitational force is a major force at work when planets are formed.
A planet’s shape is determined by physics and chemistry. The gravitational pull causes the atoms of matter to cluster into compact circular objects. Large objects have stronger gravitational fields, which encourage the formation of familiar shapes. This is why the sun and planets are round.
Jupiter has a bulge, which makes it appear wider at its equator than at its poles. The bulge is a result of gravity and rotation. It is a result of these two forces interacting, says Troy Carpenter, director of Washington State’s Goldendale Observatory.
Earth’s equator is far larger than its polar circumference, and its equator is more than 24 thousand miles long. The equator is also more distant from the center of the planet than the poles. This makes it easier to calculate the size of the planet.
This concept of a spherical Earth was first introduced in early Mesopotamian mythology. The early Mesopotamian culture envisioned the world as a disk floating in the sea with a hemispherical sky-dome above. This shape also served as the basis for early world maps. Various ancient Persian writings also reference the seven-layered ziggurat.
It has a deuterium fusion source
The energy from deuterium fusion is very plentiful. A gallon of seawater can produce as much energy as 300 gallons of petrol. Consequently, a planet has a deuterium fusion source, which can provide energy to power its environment. Nonetheless, there are several challenges associated with fusion power.
The rate of energy generation is proportional to the deuterium concentration, density, and temperature. If all three variables remain stable, the rate of energy generation will remain constant. Nevertheless, if any one of these three variables changes, the energy produced will decrease. A large change in the deuterium concentration and density would be accompanied by a slight change in temperature.
One of the biggest hurdles to fusion power is the huge amount of heat that must be contained in the tokamak. The plasma in a tokamak has a temperature of 150 million degrees Celsius, which is ten times hotter than the sun’s core. Fortunately, scientists have found a way to overcome these challenges by designing giant magnets and a strong magnetic field to contain the heat. Without these things, anything else would melt in such high temperatures.
Moreover, fusion scientists are focusing on developing advanced reactors to produce deuterium and tritium. The fusion of the two isotopes requires two to three times more energy than the deuterium-tritium fusion reaction. As a result, the amount of energy required to create a planet from deuterium and tritium is much higher than that for deuterium-tritium fusion.
Deuterium is a heavy hydrogen compound with one proton and one neutron. It is believed that deuterium can undergo fusion in the interior of Jupiter, but the core temperature of the planet is only one-eighth of the temperature required for D-D fusion. A planet that is young would have a high core temperature that would allow for fusion.
