Dwarf planet

Source: Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.

Nine likeliest[a] dwarf planets
and dates of discovery
Ceres (1801)
Pluto (1930)
Quaoar (2002)
Sedna (2003)
Orcus (2004)
Haumea (2004)
Eris (2005)
Makemake (2005)
Gonggong (2007)

A dwarf planet is a small planetary-mass object that is in direct orbit around the Sun, massive enough to be gravitationally rounded, but insufficient to achieve orbital dominance like the eight classical planets of the Solar System. The prototypical dwarf planet is Pluto, which for decades was regarded as a planet before the "dwarf" concept was adopted in 2006.

Dwarf planets are capable of being geologically active, an expectation that was borne out in 2015 by the Dawn mission to Ceres and the New Horizons mission to Pluto. Planetary geologists are therefore particularly interested in them.

Astronomers are in general agreement that at least the nine largest candidates are dwarf planets – in rough order of diameter, Pluto, Eris, Haumea, Makemake, Gonggong, Quaoar, Sedna, Ceres, and Orcus. A considerable uncertainty remains over the tenth largest candidate Salacia, which may thus be considered a borderline case. Of these ten, two have been visited by spacecraft (Pluto and Ceres) and seven others have at least one known moon (Eris, Haumea, Makemake, Gonggong, Quaoar, Orcus, and Salacia), which allows their masses and thus an estimate of their densities to be determined. Mass and density in turn can be fit into geophysical models in an attempt to determine the nature of these worlds. Only one, Sedna, has neither been visited nor has any known moons, making an accurate estimate of mass difficult. Some astronomers include many smaller bodies as well,[1] but there is no consensus that these are likely to be dwarf planets.

The term dwarf planet was coined by planetary scientist

small Solar System bodies.[6] Thus Stern and other planetary geologists consider dwarf planets and large satellites to be planets,[7]
but since 2006, the IAU and perhaps the majority of astronomers have excluded them from the roster of planets.

History of the concept

near true-colour image of Pluto and its moon Charon. Separation to scale
4 Vesta, an asteroid that was once a dwarf planet[8]

Starting in 1801, astronomers discovered Ceres and other bodies between Mars and Jupiter that for decades were considered to be planets. Between then and around 1851, when the number of planets had reached 23, astronomers started using the word asteroid (from Greek, meaning 'star-like' or 'star-shaped') for the smaller bodies and began to distinguish them as minor planets rather than major planets.[9]

With the discovery of Pluto in 1930, most astronomers considered the Solar System to have nine major planets, along with thousands of significantly smaller bodies (

orbital inclination, it became evident that it was a different kind of body from any of the other planets.[14]

In the 1990s, astronomers began to find objects in the same region of space as Pluto (now known as the Kuiper belt), and some even farther away.[15] Many of these shared several of Pluto's key orbital characteristics, and Pluto started being seen as the largest member of a new class of objects, the plutinos. It became clear that either the larger of these bodies would also have to be classified as planets, or Pluto would have to be reclassified, much as Ceres had been reclassified after the discovery of additional asteroids.[16] This led some astronomers to stop referring to Pluto as a planet. Several terms, including subplanet and planetoid, started to be used for the bodies now known as dwarf planets.[17][18] Astronomers were also confident that more objects as large as Pluto would be discovered, and the number of planets would start growing quickly if Pluto were to remain classified as a planet.[19]

Eris (then known as 2003 UB313), a trans-Neptunian object, was discovered in January 2005;[20] it was thought to be slightly larger than Pluto, and some reports informally referred to it as the tenth planet.[21] As a consequence, the issue became a matter of intense debate during the IAU General Assembly in August 2006.[22] The IAU's initial draft proposal included Charon, Eris, and Ceres in the list of planets. After many astronomers objected to this proposal, an alternative was drawn up by the Uruguayan astronomers Julio Ángel Fernández and Gonzalo Tancredi: They proposed an intermediate category for objects large enough to be round but that had not cleared their orbits of planetesimals. Beside dropping Charon from the list, the new proposal also removed Pluto, Ceres, and Eris, because they have not cleared their orbits.[23]

Although concerns were raised about the classification of planets orbiting other stars,[24] the issue was not resolved; it was proposed instead to decide this only when dwarf-planet-size objects start to be observed.[23]

In the immediate aftermath of the IAU definition of dwarf planet, some scientists expressed their disagreement with the IAU resolution.[25] Campaigns included car bumper stickers and T-shirts.[26] Mike Brown (the discoverer of Eris) agrees with the reduction of the number of planets to eight.[27]

NASA announced in 2006 that it would use the new guidelines established by the IAU.

larger moons, as additional planets.[31] Several years before the IAU definition, he used orbital characteristics to separate "überplanets" (the dominant eight) from "unterplanets" (the dwarf planets), considering both types "planets".[32]

Name

Euler diagram showing the IAU Executive Committee conception of the types of bodies in the Solar System (except the Sun)

Names for large subplanetary bodies include dwarf planet, planetoid (more general term), meso-planet (narrowly used for sizes between Mercury and Ceres), quasi-planet, and (in the transneptunian region) plutoid. Dwarf planet, however, was originally coined as a term for the smallest planets, not the largest sub-planets, and is still used that way by many planetary astronomers.

Alan Stern coined the term dwarf planet in 1990[2][3] or 1991,[33][dubiousdiscuss] as an analogy to the term dwarf star for small stars.[citation needed] Since the passing of the IAU definition, he and many of his colleagues continued to classify dwarf planets as a class of planets.[7] The IAU decided that dwarf planets are not to be considered planets, but kept Stern's term for them. Other terms for the IAU definition of the largest subplanetary bodies that do not have such conflicting connotations or usage include quasi-planet[34] and the older term planetoid ("having the form of a planet").[35] Michael E. Brown stated that planetoid is "a perfectly good word" that has been used for these bodies for years, and that the use of the term dwarf planet for a non-planet is "dumb", but that it was motivated by an attempt by the IAU division III plenary session to reinstate Pluto as a planet in a second resolution.[36] Indeed, the draft of Resolution 5A had called these median bodies planetoids,[37][38] but the plenary session voted unanimously to change the name to dwarf planet.[6] The second resolution, 5B, defined dwarf planets as a subtype of planet, as Stern had originally intended, distinguished from the other eight that were to be called "classical planets". Under this arrangement, the twelve planets of the rejected proposal were to be preserved in a distinction between eight classical planets and four dwarf planets. Resolution 5B was defeated in the same session that 5A was passed.[36] Because of the semantic inconsistency of a dwarf planet not being a planet due to the failure of Resolution 5B, alternative terms such as nanoplanet and subplanet were discussed, but there was no consensus among the CSBN to change it.[39]

In most languages equivalent terms have been created by translating dwarf planet more-or-less literally: French planète naine, Spanish planeta enano, German Zwergplanet, Russian karlikovaya planeta (карликовая планета), Arabic kaukab qazm (كوكب قزم), Chinese ǎixíngxīng (行星), Korean waesohangseong (왜소행성 / 矮小行星) or waehangseong (왜행성 / 矮行星), but in Japanese they are called junwakusei (準惑星), meaning "quasi-planets" or "peneplanets" (pene- meaning "almost").

IAU Resolution 6a of 2006

pluton.[6]

On June 11, 2008, the IAU Executive Committee announced a new term, plutoid, and a definition: all trans-Neptunian dwarf planets are plutoids.[41] Other departments of the IAU have rejected the term:

...in part because of an email miscommunication, the WG-PSN [Working Group for Planetary System Nomenclature] was not involved in choosing the word plutoid. ... In fact, a vote taken by the WG-PSN subsequent to the Executive Committee meeting has rejected the use of that specific term..."[39]

The category of 'plutoid' captured an earlier distinction between the 'terrestrial dwarf' Ceres and the 'ice dwarfs' of the outer Solar system,[42] part of a conception of a threefold division of the Solar System into inner terrestrial planets, central giant planets, and outer ice dwarfs, of which Pluto was the principal member.[43] 'Ice dwarf' also saw some use as an umbrella term for all trans-Neptunian minor planets, or for the ice asteroids of the outer Solar System; one attempted definition was that an ice dwarf "is larger than the nucleus of a normal comet and icier than a typical asteroid."[44]

Since the Dawn mission, it has been recognized that Ceres is a geologically icy body that may have originated from the outer Solar System.[45][46] Ceres has since been called an ice dwarf as well.[47]

Criteria

Planetary discriminants[48]
Body m/M🜨 [†] Λ [‡] µ [§] Π [#]
Mercury 0.055 1.95×103 9.1×104 1.3×102
Venus 0.815 1.66×105 1.35×106 9.5×102
Earth 1 1.53×105 1.7×106 8.1×102
Mars 0.107 9.42×102 1.8×105 5.4×101
Ceres 0.00016 8.32×10−4 0.33 4.0×10−2
Jupiter 317.7 1.30×109 6.25×105 4.0×104
Saturn 95.2 4.68×107 1.9×105 6.1×103
Uranus 14.5 3.85×105 2.9×104 4.2×102
Neptune 17.1 2.73×105 2.4×104 3.0×102
Pluto 0.0022 2.95×10−3 0.077 2.8×10−2
Eris 0.0028 2.13×10−3 0.10 2.0×10−2
Sedna
0.0002 3.64×10−7  < 0.07[b] 1.6×10−4

Planetary discriminants of the planets ( white ), and of the largest known dwarf planet ( light purple ) in each orbital population (asteroid belt, Kuiper belt, scattered disc, sednoids). All other known objects in these populations have smaller discriminants than the one shown.

[†] Mass in M🜨, the unit of mass equal to that of Earth ( 5.97 × 1024 kg ).
[‡]  Λ  is the capacity to
metric tons) and  a  in astronomical units (AU), where  a  is the body's semi-major axis.[32]
[§]  µ  is Soter's planetary discriminant, which he finds greater than 100 for planets. µ = m/M − m , where  m  is the mass of the body, and  M  is the aggregate mass of all the bodies that occupy its orbital zone.[48]
[#]  Π   is the capacity to clear the neighbourhood (greater than 1 for planets) by Margot.  Π = k m a ⁠− + 9 /8 , where k = 807 for units of Earth masses and AU.[50]

The category dwarf planet arose from a conflict between dynamical and geophysical ideas of what a useful conception of a planet would be. In terms of the dynamics of the Solar System, the major distinction is between bodies that gravitationally dominate their neighbourhood (Mercury through Neptune) and those that do not (such as the asteroids and Kuiper belt objects). A celestial body may have a dynamic (planetary) geology at approximately the mass required for its mantle to become plastic under its own weight, which results in the body acquiring a round shape. Because this requires a much lower mass than gravitationally dominating the region of space near their orbit, there are a population of objects that are massive enough to have a world-like appearance and planetary geology, but not massive enough to clear their neighborhood. Examples are Ceres in the asteroid belt and Pluto in the Kuiper belt.[51]

Dynamicists usually prefer using gravitational dominance as the threshold for planethood, because from their perspective smaller bodies are better grouped with their neighbours, e.g. Ceres as simply a large asteroid and Pluto as a large Kuiper belt object.[52][53] Geoscientists usually prefer roundness as the threshold, because from their perspective the internally driven geology of a body like Ceres makes it more similar to a classical planet like Mars, than to a small asteroid that lacks internally driven geology. This necessitated the creation of the category of dwarf planets to describe this intermediate class.[51]

Orbital dominance

Alan Stern and Harold F. Levison introduced a parameter Λ (upper case lambda) in 2000, expressing the likelihood of an encounter resulting in a given deflection of orbit.[32] The value of this parameter in Stern's model is proportional to the square of the mass and inversely proportional to the period. This value can be used to estimate the capacity of a body to clear the neighbourhood of its orbit, where  Λ > 1  will eventually clear it. A gap of five orders of magnitude in Λ was found between the smallest terrestrial planets and the largest asteroids and Kuiper belt objects.[48]

Using this parameter, Steven Soter and other astronomers argued for a distinction between planets and dwarf planets based on the inability of the latter to "clear the neighbourhood around their orbits": planets are able to remove smaller bodies near their orbits by collision, capture, or gravitational disturbance (or establish orbital resonances that prevent collisions), whereas dwarf planets lack the mass to do so.[32] Soter went on to propose a parameter he called the planetary discriminant, designated with the symbol µ (mu), that represents an experimental measure of the actual degree of cleanliness of the orbital zone (where µ is calculated by dividing the mass of the candidate body by the total mass of the other objects that share its orbital zone), where µ > 100  is deemed to be cleared.[48]

Jean-Luc Margot refined Stern and Levison's concept to produce a similar parameter Π (upper case Pi).[50] It is based on theory, avoiding the empirical data used by Λ .  Π > 1  indicates a planet, and there is again a gap of several orders of magnitude between planets and dwarf planets.

There are several other schemes that try to differentiate between planets and dwarf planets,[25] but the 2006 definition uses this concept.[6]

Hydrostatic equilibrium