Are P1 & P2 moons just found in orbit around Pluto New ? or Just discovered ? or From Meteor crash?
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P1 & P2 are pre-existing moons, not the results of recent impacts.  There are a number of indicators as to this.\n\nThe first, to rule out a meteor impact in the past year, is that after the moons were noticed in 2005, photographs taken by Hubble from June 2002 - May 2003 showed the moons.\n\nAnother indicator that they have been there for a long time is their orbital stability.  They are in circular orbits in the same plane and direction as Charon, the previously known moon of Pluto.\n\nThere have also been no disturbances in Charon's orbit which would likely be the case if two new bodies were introduced into the Pluto system.  If they were recently introduced into Pluto's orbit, they would show a more erratic orbit, most likely not in the same plane as Charon and in a more eccentric orbit, moving closer and further from Pluto throughout their orbits.
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The International Astronomical Union decided that Pluto was no longer a planet. The reason is that while Pluto is round, orbits the sun, and has three moons, it has not cleared (via gravity) its own orbit of debris.  Instead, they decided to classify it as a "dwarf planet".\n\nSee the details below.\n\nRESOLUTION 5A\nThe IAU therefore resolves that "planets" and other bodies in our Solar System, except satellites, be defined into three distinct categories in the following way:\n\n(1) A "planet" [footnote 1] is a celestial body that (a) is in orbit around the Sun, (b) has sufficient mass for its self-gravity to overcome rigid body forces so that it assumes a hydrostatic equilibrium (nearly round) shape, and (c) has cleared the neighbourhood around its orbit.\n\n(2) A "dwarf planet" is a celestial body that (a) is in orbit around the Sun, (b) has sufficient mass for its self-gravity to overcome rigid body forces so that it assumes a hydrostatic equilibrium (nearly round) shape [footnote 2] , (c) has not cleared the neighbourhood around its orbit, and (d) is not a satellite.\n\n(3) All other objects [footnote 3] except satellites orbiting the Sun shall be referred to collectively as "Small Solar-System Bodies".\n\n\nFootnote 1: The eight "planets" are: Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune.\n\nFootnote 2: An IAU process will be established to assign borderline objects into either dwarf planet and other categories.\n\nFootnote 3: These currently include most of the Solar System asteroids, most Trans-Neptunian Objects (TNOs), comets, and other small bodies.\n\nRESOLUTION 6A\nThe IAU further resolves:\n\nPluto is a "dwarf planet" by the above definition and is recognized as the prototype of a new category of trans-Neptunian objects.
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It's actually just a large asteroid, and they haven't decided whether to call it a planet yet. Problem is, they also discovered that Pluto is just a large asteroid, and if they disacknowledge the new planet, they would have to also disacknowledge Pluto.
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http://www.iau.org\nhttp://www.iau.org/fileadmin/content/pdfs/Resolution_GA26-5-6.pdf\n\non 24 august 2006, the international astronomical union reclassified pluto.\n\nhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pluto\n\npluto does orbit the sun, is ball-shaped and is not a satellite, but it does not have an isolated orbit (a bunch of other similar bodies have similar orbits.) so it is not a planet.\n\ni have been waiting for this since i was about ten when i learned that pluto didn't fit the pattern set by the major bodies in the solar system so it was an anomaly. it just felt "out of place". now that astronomers have found hundreds of other bodies with similar orbits, classifying "134340 pluto" as a planet is even more irrational. i feel somewhat satisfied, but i don't know how long this will drag on tho. many planetary astronomers are satisfied that the definition is rigorous enuf. i can accept that the definition is flawed, but i can not accept that "134340 pluto" is a planet.\n\nthis was the right thing to do, believe me. this does not change anything about pluto or the solar system. this just corrects the mistake of classifying pluto as a planet initially.\n\nthis same thing happened has happened before.  in 1800, an astronomer found a body orbiting between the orbits of mars and jupiter and thought it was a planet.  astronomers finally stopped classifying them as planets after they found several other bodies with similar orbits, and no one thinks ceres, pallas, juno, and vesta are planets today.\n\nmany astronomers consider pluto and charon to be a binary system, but two small bodies orbit that system. they are called nix and hydra.\n\nincidentally, "134340 pluto" was never a moon of neptune. neptune did capture triton. this is why triton has a retrograde orbit
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read http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pluto\n\nno, pluto does orbit the sun, is ball-shaped, does not have an isolated orbit (a bunch of other similar bodies have similar orbits.), and is not a satellite so it is not a planet.\n\ni have been waiting for this since i was about ten when i learned that pluto didn't fit the pattern set by the major bodies in the solar system so it was an anomaly.  it just felt "out of place".  now that astronomers have found hundreds of other bodies with similar orbits, classifying "134340 pluto" as a planet is even more irrational.  i feel somewhat satisfied, but i don't know how long this will drag on tho.  many planetary astronomers are satisfied that the definition is rigorous enuf.  i can accept that the definition is flawed, but i can not accept that "134340 pluto" is a planet.\n\nthis was the right thing to do, believe me.  this does not change anything about pluto or the solar system.  this just corrects the mistake of classifying pluto as a planet initially.\n\nmany astronomers consider pluto and charon to be a binary system, but two small bodies orbit that system.  they are called nix and hydra.\n\nincidentally, "134340 pluto" was never a moon of neptune.  neptune did capture triton. this is why triton has a retrograde orbit.
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we already have a second moon called cruithne. it dosen't orbit the same way as the moon. it orbits in a kind of horseshoe shape. it is a captured asteroid. there are also another three called (54509) 2000 PH5, (85770) 1998 UP1 and 2002 AA29. cruithne was discovered in 1986, it's 5km in diameter and is 30 times the distance of the earth to the moon.
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Go to the following website to get the latest news on the Pluto - Kuiper Belt mission:\n\nhttp://pluto.jhuapl.edu/
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Yes, the general consensus appears to be that another planet has been found, which is currently designated 2003 UB313, it is about 2,800km across - a world of rock and ice and somewhat larger than Pluto. Scientists say it is three times as far away as Pluto, in an orbit at an angle to the orbits of the main planets. \n\nThough it should also be understood that the scientific community are also considering a redefinition of planet, which might reclassify not only this new 10th planet and Pluto has not being planets.
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Probably because, as many astronomers think, Pluto isn't really a true planet, but a huge asteroid that once had a very erratic orbit that has gradually stabilized over time.
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That's right because Pluto, in fact, may actually be an asteroid and not a planet at all.  It was thought for years that Pluto is a planet, and likely not formally *changed* persay, but it's the largest mass found in an asteroid belt, and, being spherical, it was assumed to be a planet.\n\nScience and the invention of things like the Hubble telescope have shown us more detail on such things as galaxies, planets, asteroid belts, etc.
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I have been doing a presentation on Pluto is not a planet.\n\nI put up a bulletin board with the pictures of the planets with special pages showing Ceres, Pluto, and Eris.
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Yes I have.  They featured an article about it on Space.com and the NASA website.  Seems that many other Kuiper belt objects have mutiple satellites (moons) as well.  It will be interesting what the New Horizon probe will find when it gets out to Pluto and beyond.  I am hoping the launch will be on time so it can use the gravitational assist from Jupiter to get there quicker.  There was a NASA site where a person could get their name placed on a CD that is launching with the probe.  Several of my friends and I signed up and our names are on that disk now.
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After the discovery of Uranus, it was noticed that its orbit was not as it should be in accordance with Newton's laws.  It was therefore predicted that another more distant planet must be perturbing Uranus' orbit. Neptune was first observed by Galle and d'Arrest on 1846 Sept 23 very near to the locations independently predicted by Adams and Le Verrier from calculations based on the observed positions of Jupiter, Saturn and Uranus. An international dispute arose between the English and French (though not, apparently between Adams and Le Verrier personally) over priority and the right to name the new planet; they are now jointly credited with Neptune's discovery. Subsequent observations have shown that the orbits calculated by Adams and Le Verrier diverge from Neptune's actual orbit fairly quickly. Had the search for the planet taken place a few years earlier or later it would not have been found anywhere near the predicted location. \n\nMore than two centuries earlier, in 1613, Galileo observed Neptune when it happened to be very near Jupiter, but he thought it was just a star. On two successive nights he actually noticed that it moved slightly with respect to another nearby star. But on the subsequent nights it was out of his field of view. Had he seen it on the previous few nights Neptune's motion would have been obvious to him. But, alas, cloudy skies prevented obsevations on those few critical days. \n\nNeptune has been visited by only one spacecraft, Voyager 2 on Aug 25 1989. Much of we know about Neptune comes from this single encounter. But fortunately, recent ground-based and HST observations have added a great deal, too. \n\nBecause Pluto's orbit is so eccentric, it sometimes crosses the orbit of Neptune making Neptune the most distant planet from the Sun for a few years. \n\nNeptune's composition is probably similar to Uranus': various "ices" and rock with about 15% hydrogen and a little helium. Like Uranus, but unlike Jupiter and Saturn, it may not have a distinct internal layering but rather to be more or less uniform in composition. But there is most likely a small core (about the mass of the Earth) of rocky material. Its atmosphere is mostly hydrogen and helium with a small amount of methane. \n\nNeptune's blue color is largely the result of absorption of red light by methane in the atmosphere but there is some additional as-yet-unidentified chromophore which gives the clouds their rich blue tint. \n\nLike a typical gas planet, Neptune has rapid winds confined to bands of latitude and large storms or vortices. Neptune's winds are the fastest in the solar system, reaching 2000 km/hour. \n\nLike Jupiter and Saturn, Neptune has an internal heat source -- it radiates more than twice as much energy as it receives from the Sun. \n\nAt the time of the Voyager encounter, Neptune's most prominent feature was the Great Dark Spot (left) in the southern   hemisphere. It was about half the size as Jupiter's Great Red Spot (about the same diameter as Earth). Neptune's winds blew the Great Dark Spot westward at 300 meters/second (700 mph). Voyager 2 also saw a smaller dark spot in the southern hemisphere and a small irregular white cloud that zips around Neptune every 16 hours or so now known as "The Scooter" (right). It may be a plume rising from lower in the atmosphere but its true nature remains a mystery. \n\nHowever, HST observations of  Neptune (left) in 1994 show that the Great Dark Spot has disappeared! It has either simply dissipated or is currently being masked by other aspects of the atmosphere. A few months later HST discovered a new dark spot in Neptune's northern hemisphere. This indicates that Neptune's atmosphere changes rapidly, perhaps due to slight changes in the temperature differences between the tops and bottoms of the clouds. \n\n Neptune also has rings. Earth-based observations showed only faint arcs instead of complete ri
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Pluto is more likely to be a KBO, or a Kuiper Belt Object. By this theory it's been around since the solar system began. There are other objects in this area of space that equal the size of Pluto.
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Today kids are not taught that Ceres was once a planet, before it got downgraded to the newly created category of asteroid in about 1850. So I suspect that in 100 years the whole Pluto thing will be forgotten in the same way.
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It's absolutely possible, and I believe there's a chance that at one time there was indeed more than one moon.  Who's to say that at one time the earth didn't have two moons, but one, for some reason, found its orbit altered into a decaying one, where it eventually crashed into the earth.  Perhaps a large meteor or some other galactic mass crashed into this deceased moon and hit it with enough force to cause this change.  \nThere are many theories as to how our moon was formed, none of which are proven to be 100% true.  Given the uncertainty, the possibility MUST exist that there may have been more moons.
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Ten. A new planet has been discovered that is approximately the same size as Pluto. It has not yet been formally named. Check http://www.nasa.gov/vision/universe/solarsystem/newplanet-072905-images.html for more info:)