What is pluto, exactly? If it is not a planet what is the scientific name for it?

I need my anwsers for a school project!!

What is pluto, exactly? If it is not a planet what is the scientific name for it?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pluto





on 24 august 2006, the international astronomical union voted to reclassify pluto as a "dwarf planet", but i don't know how long this will drag on tho. many planetary astronomers are not satisfied that the definition is rigorous enuf. i can accept that the definition is flawed, but i can not accept that pluto is a planet.





pluto does orbit the sun, is ball-shaped, does not have an isolated orbit (a bunch of other similar bodies have similar orbits.), and is not a satellite so it is not a planet. this does not change anything about the solar system or pluto. it just corrects the mistake of classifying pluto as a planet initially.





many astronomers consider pluto and charon to be a binary system, but two small bodies orbit that system. they are called nix and hydra.





i have been waiting for this since i was about twelve. i feel somewhat satisfied. i knew that pluto didn't fit the pattern set by the major bodies in the solar system so it was an anomaly. it just felt "out of place". now that astronomers have found hundreds of other bodies with similar orbits, classifying "134340 pluto" as a planet is even more irrational. this was the right thing to do, believe me.





incidentally, "134340 pluto" was never a moon of neptune. neptune did capture triton. this is why triton has a retrograde orbit.
Reply:you know what, I don't get why these dumb astronomers just can't leave poor old Pluto alone!!! If they just leave it as a planet:


1) They would save a lot of $$$ on new school textbooks


2) They would have prevented protests


3) They wouldn't have thrown the world into such huge confusion!!!
Reply:Pluto is a dwarf planet.





Umm..., JawaBoy, science doesn't work like that. Scientists aren't trying to satisfy the idiotic masses who don't understand it.
Reply:Pluto is now catergorised as a 'dwarf planet'.





Pluto was automatically disqualified as a planet 'because its highly elliptical orbit overlaps with that of Neptune. It will now join a new category of dwarf planets'
Reply:Under drawf planet. In the past, the scientist found Pluto and name it as a planet that it orbits around the sun, however that time they are investigating for more signs of planets orbiting around sun, and Pluto is known to be orbited around the sun but have not explored to see more details because scientist merely recorded their findings.





Later, the scientist want to investigate that planet more clearly, they send a space shuttle machine to there to learn about it. However, it requires a lot of years to reach there. As it takes time to reach there, the world already know and believe pluto is a planet, however the scientist are not convinced and it's too late to change the information, so they debated about it until they recieve the evidence more about pluto.





So far what we know about pluto, it is small and cold place where it recieve less sunlight in the solar system. the information about Pluto is little, is the another reason why they send the space shuttle machine to there to investigate and explore to monitor the environment.





After recieved the findings, the astronomers convinced it resembles much of one of drawfs planets inside the solar system, more than planet. So they label pluto under one of the drawf planets, which is a recent news hit in astronomer's knowledge that will change a bit of the astronomy's study and textbooks as well.
Reply:dwarf planet
Reply:You know what most scientists fight on the definition for a "planet". Even though there are definitions you can find for a "planet", there is a debate on what is to be called a "planet". Pluto is considered to be a trans-Neptunian object. It is considerably small (very small) compared to any other planet in our Solar system.





Pluto has got a different orbit entirely than any other planet. There was a debate on this topic in 1999 where all scientists agreed that Pluto never fit the basic characteristics of other planets. Pluto falls into a category of a smaller bodies of our solar system (like comets or asteroids) and scientists are still debating the category which these objects (such as Pluto, asteroids, comets etc.,) fall into.





Good Luck with your research...