This is discussion archived from a time before the current discussion method was installed.
Trouser Wearing Barbarian: No YKTTW and only three examples of bad things actually happening to Pluto. Is this even a trope, or is it just someone Complaining that Pluto isn't considered a planet anymore?
arromdee: Edited:
The reason Pluto was downgraded from a planet to a dwarf planet is basically technical. A "real" planet has to have three characteristics: (1) It orbits the sun; (2) it's spherical; and (3) has no large debris field in its orbit. Pluto fails the third criterion; some of the objects in its orbit (such as Neptune) are huge.
The last qualifier is wrong. It has to "clear the neighborhood" which can roughly be described as having no large debris field in its orbit, however there is a clause about gravitational influence, which excludes resonances... which means Neptune doesn't count, but the Kuiper belt still does.
