• Question: Is Pluto the smallest planet in the Solar System?

    Asked by anon-245773 to Sam, Samantha, Nicol, Lori-Ann, Liam, David on 10 Mar 2020.
    • Photo: Samantha Faircloth

      Samantha Faircloth answered on 10 Mar 2020:

      Hello QinlanW, that’s a good question. Pluto is very small and is a very long way away. Very recently, Pluto was renamed as a ‘dwarf planet’. This wasn’t because it was very small (even though it is!), it was because it doesn’t sweep out its own path (its own ‘orbit’) around the Sun. There are other materials like enormous rocks that follow the same path around the Sun. Scientists decided that this meant Pluto should be down-graded to a ‘dwarf’ planet 🙂

    • Photo: Lori-Ann Foley

      Lori-Ann Foley answered on 10 Mar 2020:

      Part of the reason that Pluto was demoted from planet to dwarf planet was because it was so small. Mercury is the smallest official planet and it is less than 5000 km in diameter. Pluto was half the size of Mercury, so super small!

    • Photo: David Sobral

      David Sobral answered on 10 Mar 2020:

      Pluto unfortunately did not clear its orbit and there are many bodies similar to Pluto on a similar orbit, and therefore it does not have all it takes to be a planet (orbiting the Sun, be round by its own gravity, and having clearer its orbit). Therefore, the smallest planet in the Solar system is Mercury, which is also the closest to the Sun

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