In a new 60-second video, scientists at NASA explain the characteristics that make a celestial body a dwarf planet.
The video released by NASA is no coincidence, nor is the timing. The US space agency did not decide to present this short animation for fun.
Instead, the video was released yesterday as NASA's New Horizons spacecraft began approaching the planet Pluto.
Pluto is a tiny planet in our Solar System. Until 2006 it was considered a regular planet, but after a re-evaluation by the International Astronomical Union it was classified as a dwarf planet.
As explained in the NASA video below, this happened because Pluto was found to not have a "pure" orbit, meaning it is not alone on its orbital path.
Pluto shares its cosmic orbit with many other objects, including asteroids.
For this reason, it cannot be considered a planet but rather a dwarf planet since it meets the requirements for this category (it has enough mass and gravity to have a spherical shape, and it has an orbit around the sun that it shares with other bodies. It is also not a satellite of another planet).
Along with the reassessment of planets and the definition of dwarf planets, several other dwarf planets have recently been discovered in our solar system, such as Eris, Ceres, Charon, Makemake, and Haumea.
Also, earlier this year NASA's Dawn spacecraft arrived at such a celestial body, called Ceres, and successfully entered its orbit.
Astronomers expect that with the next space exploration missions that will launch in the coming years, they will be able to document more and more dwarf planets in our solar system.
Watch the related video below:
