07. Is Pluto a real planet or a rock or a ball of ice or just some asteroid that got caught in the Sun's gravitational pull? (A K2S Question)

From The Space Library

We would like to know because scientists are still debating it. There isn't really a good definition of a planet. A planet is a large object orbiting the Sun, and smaller objects orbiting the Sun are called asteroids or comets or other things. Some people think Pluto is large enough to be called a planet; some people don't. Pluto is a ball of rock and ice, but that doesn't mean it's not a planet. The Earth is just a ball of rock if you want to think of it that way. But in any case, what we call Pluto makes no difference to what it is. It's a very interesting place.

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Answer provided by Dr. John Spencer, Ph.D.

Question and Answer extracted from the book Kids to Space - by Lonnie Schorer

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