3 ms·
Aye, but what does Pluto orbit, and what does the Moon orbit?
by lenerdenator 2mo ago
Aye, but what does Pluto orbit, and what does the Moon orbit?
- vova_hn2 2mo agoPluto orbits center of combined masses of itself and Charon, which does not lie within either of them. Also, they are both tidally locked to each other, just like Moon is tidally locked to Earth.
- jsbisviewtiful 2mo agoIn order to be defined as a planet, an object needs to meet 3 criteria: - Orbits a star (Pluto does and I assume that's what you were asking about) - The object has enough mass to pull itself into a sphere (meets this criteria) - The object has enough gravity to have cleared its nearby orbit of debris and other objects Neither Pluto nor Eris qualify for a planet because of that last one and, like I mentioned, the Moon has more mass than Pluto and Eris. The Kuiper belt objects all have this issue, but my point was that dwarf planets are pretty small - especially compared to other objects around Sol. If you walked non-stop around the Moon it would take 91 days compared to Pluto's 62 days and Eris's 61 days. The designation of dwarf planet is not that big of a deal imo.
- deleted 1mo ago[deleted]
- odyssey7 1mo agoYou’re describing the planets that are conformant to the 2006-IAU specification.