Pluto; a proto planet in transition
Pluto
is one of thousands of planetesimal sized Trans-Neptunian bodies. For
the last few years there has been a raging debate as to whether Pluto
is a planet or not. As Pluto is orbit about the sun, it can be
considered a planet, except for its diminutive size, which is why it
was "demoted". Pluto has a companion, Charon, which one can
say is a moon of Pluto. In reality, Charon is another planetesimal
which happens to be in orbit around Pluto and shares the same
relationship with Pluto. Pluto is caught in a curious two to three
resonance with Neptune, which stabilizes its orbit, because it never
gets close enough to Neptune to be pulled into or ejected out of the
solar system. For every three of Neptune's orbits, Pluto and Charon
orbit twice. Pluto belongs to the family of inner Kuiper Belt
objects.
Pluto represents the seed of another type of body. It is neither rocky planet nor a gas giant planet. It is made up of volatiles like methane, ammonia, water ice and other hydrocarbons. These molecules were too far out to be collected by the gas giants and their moons. By accretion stages that are identical to those forming the Earth and the other major planets, Pluto, Charon, Sedna and thousands of others are slowly growing in size. They are still under evolution. What remains is competition for material by absorbing smaller planetesimals. Due to their distance from the sun and their as yet weak gravitational influence, their evolution takes billions of year as opposed to the millions it took to form the terrestrial inner planets.
http://syzygyastro.hubpages.com/hub/What-Pluto-Really-Is
Pluto represents the seed of another type of body. It is neither rocky planet nor a gas giant planet. It is made up of volatiles like methane, ammonia, water ice and other hydrocarbons. These molecules were too far out to be collected by the gas giants and their moons. By accretion stages that are identical to those forming the Earth and the other major planets, Pluto, Charon, Sedna and thousands of others are slowly growing in size. They are still under evolution. What remains is competition for material by absorbing smaller planetesimals. Due to their distance from the sun and their as yet weak gravitational influence, their evolution takes billions of year as opposed to the millions it took to form the terrestrial inner planets.
http://syzygyastro.hubpages.com/hub/What-Pluto-Really-Is
