Trivia
HardWhen Pluto Lost Its Designation As A Planet It Also Lost Its What?
Answer: Name
In 2006, the celestial object previously known as the ninth planet in our solar system, Pluto, was officially demoted. Although the announcement by the International Astronomical Union left a lot of people scratching their heads and more than a few declaring, “It was a planet when I learned the solar system as a lad and it’s going to stay a planet!” the IAU actually had a rather compelling case. At the time the object was discovered in 1930, it looked unique and planet like. After nearly a century of astronomical study since, however, it’s clear that the object we called Pluto is but one of many numerous icy objects orbiting the Sun at similar distances (including another that is bigger than Pluto).
Part of the demotion process from planet to dwarf planet, while strictly a matter of bookkeeping and consistency in records, has a bitter twinge to it you’d expect to find in a tragic story: Pluto was stripped of its name and given a number like all the other asteroids, icy bodies, dwarf planets, and other chunks of non-planetary objects rocketing around the solar system. Pluto was reclassified and renamed with the designation 134340 along with all of its moons, also stripped of their names and reclassified as 134340 (I-V).
Despite the demotion and the stripping of title, Pluto lives on: members of the very class of planet it belongs to, that of the trans-neptunian dwarf planet, are referred to as Plutoids.
Trivia
HardA Demonym Is A Word That Identifies A Person By?
Trivia
HardExposure To What Made Hat Makers In The 19th Century “Mad Hatters”?
Trivia
Very HardBesides Humans, The Only Mammal Known To Love Hot Peppers Is The?
Trivia
EasyIn The U.S. People See A Man In The Moon, But In Japan They See A?
Trivia
HardWhat Common Office Supply Staple Is Capable Of Generating X-Ray Radiation?
Trivia
HardA Group Of Off-The-Shelf Computers Run In Parallel As A Super Computer Is Called A?
Trivia
HardViewers Of Star Trek: The Original Series Found Which Of These Confusing?
Trivia
HardWhich Musician Revitalized His Career By Composing The Windows 95 Start Up Sound?
Trivia
Very HardBefore It Was Known As The Black Plague The Population Decimating Pandemic Was Known As?
Trivia
Very HardThe First Identified Vitamin Was?