Pluto isn't a planet -- but it gives us clues for how the solar system formed

[sl8]

https://www.npr.org/2024/06/22/g-s1-5023/pluto-dwarf-planet-solar-system-ceres
(more links at source)

Pluto isn’t a planet — but it gives us clues for how the solar system formed

JUNE 22, 2024 5:00 AM ET
By Regina G. Barber, Rebecca Ramirez



NASA's New Horizons spacecraft captured this high-resolution enhanced color view of Pluto that is inserted beneath the Short Wave logo. The image combines blue, red and infrared images taken by the Ralph/Multispectral Visual Imaging Camera.
NASA/JHUAPL/SwRI

This story is part of Short Wave's series Space Camp about all the weird, wonderful things happening in the universe. Check out the rest of the series.

If you were born in the last century you might have memorized that there were nine planets in our solar system, as heard in the famous Schoolhouse Rock! song, Interplanet Janet. Upon the discovery of its existence in 1930, Pluto enjoyed decades of special status as one of the solar system's planets.

Then, in the summer of 2006, Pluto was demoted.

Part two of Short Wave's series Space Camp looks into this demotion from "planet" to "dwarf planet." It's a shift that on its face might seem slight — all that's happened is the word "dwarf" was added in front of "planet." But Wladimir Lyra, a computational astrophysicist at New Mexico State University says that although "planet" and "dwarf planet" sound similar, comparing a dwarf planet to a planet is similar saying that a pineapple is a type of apple. Which is to say, it is not really the same at all.

[...]

[elleng]

1. *although "planet" and "dwarf planet" sound similar,

comparing a dwarf planet to a planet is similar saying that a pineapple is a type of apple. Which is to say, it is not really the same at all.'

[dupagelib]

2. It's Tyson's fault.

I mean, what did Pluto do to him to piss him off so much?