In what respects is Pluto more like a moon than a Jovian or terrestrial planet - Essay Example

Pluto Plutos identity and origin have long baffled astronomers. In late 1950s it was suggested this planet was an escaped Neptune moon, knocked by its biggest current moon, Triton out of the orbit (Weintraub 13). However this theory is heavily criticized since Pluto never actually originates near Neptune. A Jovian planet is a real planet, which Pluto is not currently. Jovian planet is Jupiter like and possesses low density and a large diameter. Since Pluto is dissimilar to Jupiter and has a small diameter it is not recognized as a Jovian planet.

A terrestrial planet in the other hand is the one that resembles the earth being rocky, small, and dense. Since Pluto is a small ice chunk, it does not quite settle into these two categories and is more similar to a satellite or moon (Weintraub 45). One of the criteria for any object to be categorized as a real planet is that it must have “cleared the neighborhood around its orbit." The mass of Earth is approximately 1.7 million times higher than the mass of all other objects within its orbit.

Unfortunately, the mass of Pluto is only 0.07 times higher than the mass of its other orbiting objects. Consequently, in 2006 Pluto was officially relegated to a ‘dwarf planet’ (Weintraub 98). More objective minds have lately decided to remove Pluto from the list of planets surrounding the sun. There are some objects that are larger than the Pluto that would qualify to be included to the list of planets if really Pluto was deliberated a planet (Weintraub 250). Works CitedWeintraub, David Andrew.

Is Pluto a Planet?: Historical Journey Through the Solar System. New York: Princeton University Press, 2007.