OBJECTIVE:  I will be able to explain the definition of 'dwarf planet' to an articulate 6th grader during class today.

WORD FOR TODAY:

• solar nebula (star nursery)
• super nova (exploding star)
• Sol ("Our Sun")
• Asteroid ("Rocks in space" otherwise known as "Flying Potatoes" )
• Comet ("A dirty snowball")
• Meteor ("Rocks falling to Earth")
• Moon ("A rocky body orbiting a planet")
• Planet ("A spherical body orbiting a star")
  • Mercury
  • Venus
  • Earth
  • Mars
  • Jupiter *(has rings!)
  • Saturn *(has rings!)
  • Uranus *(has rings!)
  • Neptune *(has rings!)
• Dwarf Planet:
  • Pluto
  • Eris
  • Haumea
  • Trans-Neptunian Objects
• Astronomical Unit (1 AU = 150,000,000 km = ~ 100,000,000 miles)

Thea ("Smacked into Earth, nearly destroying our planet")

OBSERVATIONS: Looking NASTY for the next few nights -- stay tuned

WORK O' THE DAY: 

We have a very short class today so let's hyper-focus on Dwarf Planets.

The best way to do that is to take a look at the Pluto 'system'. It wasn't until decades after Pluto was discovered that scientists discovered that what they thought was just a single 'planet' was in fact the 'planet' Pluto and a moon (Charon) that was half the size of Pluto. When seen from Earth-based telescopes of the time they appeared to be the same disc. It wasn't until (I think?) we had space-based telescopes that we were able to clearly resolve not only Charon but several additional moons that made up the Pluto 'system'.

Please take a few moments to diagram the Pluto system.

Please clearly indicate the 'moons' and the 'dwarf planets'. What makes them 'Dwarf Planets' and not moons?

Let's review the definition of 'Dwarf Planets' and just WHY astronomers created that new class of objects in our solar system..