Of course, we have all read and heard about Pluto since childhood, that Pluto is the ninth planet in our solar system. Which is orbiting, far away from the sun And the coldest  and smallest planet in size.  

but what happened suddenly, that no one mentions it today as a planet?  

Where did Pluto go? 

Is Pluto over? 

Or it has gone too far, Where it is not possible for us humans to know about it today? 

The answer to all these questions That

 In 2006,

The International Astronomical Union, within its 26th General Assembly, called Pluto a bonus planet and placed three definitions of the planet. Any astronomical body that fulfills these three conditions will be called a planet. And one of those conditions drove Pluto out of the solar system forever. It now surrounded by billions of asteroids in its dark and coldest space And even today it revolves around the sun in its orbit But Pluto is no longer part of the solar system family. Why is that and what are those three definitions? Before understanding this, it is important for you to know the structure of Pluto, its location and the history of its discovery. 

History of Pluto:  

The discovery of Pluto actually began in 1930 and was first discovered by Clyde Tombaugh, an American astronaut. Which was later given the status of the ninth planet. Mathematically, it should have been larger than Mercury, but it didn't. In fact, it's area was only slightly larger than Russia country.  

Because its area is 17.7 million square kilometers while Russia has 17.1 square kilometers. Which is the largest country in the world in terms of area. Its diameter is 2376.6 km. Which is 1097.6 km less than our moon. It is a small ice ball with a surface temperature of 223 degrees Celsius. That's why the gases here are frozen. It is very different from the rest of the solar system planets. Because its orbit is more lipstick or egg-shaped. It orbits within a 70 degree angle around the sun. And it is located at a distance of 7.5 million kilometers from the Earth. That is why Pluto takes 248 years to complete one cycle of the sun. 

Discovery of Pluto: 

The existence of the planet Uranus in 1840 was mathematically predicted by a French mathematician, Urban Le Warier. Uranus is a planet close to Neptune. Something inside her orbit is stirring or changing, Which may be the eighth planet. And so the planet Neptune, which is close to Pluto, was discovered. In the same way, the turbulence and change in Neptune's orbit discovered Pluto. When research began on it in 1929, Clyde Tombaugh was assigned for this. And so on February 28, 1930, he was discovered as the ninth planet so he was surprised to see all his calculations prove to be wrong. That it is not only equal to the mass of the earth, but its mass is less than the moon. Because Pluto's Moon Siren told us that it is only 0.0022% of the Earth's surface. 

So far we have only blurred images of him so it was important to know more about him. And that was possible with the help of a space prop. But to cover a distance of 17 billion kilometers was not an easy task and at the same time perfect angles and calculations were necessary. If anything went wrong, this mission would have failed. By 1997, Voyager 2 and then Voyager 1 were sent to explore Gas Child, including Pluto. It provided us with valuable information about these planets, but Pluto was still out of our reach. We had nothing but a blurred picture of Pluto. 

New Horizon spacecraft: 

Then came the time on January 19, 2006, when NASA launched the New Horizons spacecraft specifically to learn about Pluto in space. It was to become the longest-traveling spacecraft in human history, and even today, despite losing contact with us, it continues to move farther into space. It covered a distance of five billion kilometers in nine and a half years, only ten days away from Pluto when it suddenly lost contact with us. 

He also had to study Pluto's Kuiper belt. which is home to many small planets, thousands of old icy objects, billions of comets or icy asteroids. Because it was going to tell us a lot about the structure of our solar system. It covered a distance of about 400,000 kilometers to our moon in just 9 hours. after Reached Jupiter in one year, it accelerated further with the help of a gravitational slingshot. And its speed was fifty thousand kilometers per hour. For the next eight years, it went on like same speed But the problem was that at that time it was not possible to land it on Pluto at the same speed or slow it down. So it was just a fly by mission. The only chance was for New Horizon to orbit Pluto and collect all the data. To operate them from the ground, a signal takes four and a half hours at the speed of light. Therefore, within New Horizon, these orders already existed, when and where to move it. But ten days ago, when we were very close to Pluto, The connection to Horizon was suddenly lost. And then, after two hours of continuous work, when the connection was restored, the whole system was rebooted. That is, all the data was gone and nothing was left. 

Scientists worked for 72 hours straight, again uploading many commands without any mistakes. Then New Horizon started sending us amazing pictures of Pluto, which we found out That it is the coldest sphere of icy valleys filled with nitrogen gas. And we knew all the essentials about its orbit, weather and structure. But the question was, now what about New Horizon? By January 2019, it had broken its own world record and reached the Kuiper Belt, which is several billion kilometers away from Pluto. But then his cameras went off, we lost contact with it and now we don't know how far he must have gone in space. About which we have no idea nor can we see it. 

Three definitions of the planet: 

In 2005, a new planet, Eris, was discovered farther away from Pluto. So it forced the International Astronomical Unit to redefine the planet. And so within the 26th General Assembly of 2006, three conditions were imposed for a body to be called a planet. Which are as follows. 

1. Any astronomical body would be called a planet if it orbited the sun. in its own orbit. 
2. He should have enough mass to keep himself inside the round shape. 
3. He should keep the orb around him clean And if there is something around its orbit, such as the asteroids around Saturn that orbit, Similarly, orbit this planet, or collide with it and merge in. 

This was the third condition that Pluto did not follow. Its size is so small that its gravity cannot rotate them, nor can it merge into itself. That's why it was put in the category of a bonus planets. 

Which includes four more planets. Like Pluto orbiting our sun in its orbit. That is, Pluto is still present in our solar system which wasn't destroyed, just changed its category. As soon as the James Webb Telescope is launched, we will start to get such clear pictures of it Which will give us a lot to learn about this icy land Which we could never have imagined. Because Hubble, the most advanced telescope in human history in space, is capable of taking blurry images of Pluto. So for that we just have to wait a while.

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