Earthed

How did they determine Zena is a planet? Why is it not just a piece of the meteor belt?

I think it is not round, and it does not orbit like the other planets but has a huge elliptical orbit that is in a different plane than the other planets. What makes it a planet, not a meteor in orbit?

Public Comments

1. They measured it's size with a big telescope and decided it is a little larger than Pluto.
2. the object 2003 UB313, unofficially known as xena, is about 5 percent larger than pluto, but many favor the reclassification of the bodies in the solar system into three groups, the rocky terrestrials, the gas giants, and the ice dwarfs. there are hundreds of small icy bodies orbiting the sun more distant than neptune i.e. pluto, quaoar, sedna, and 2003 UB313.
3. Actually, I don't think this has been decided that it IS a planet. In fact, there are some who want to see Pluto removed from the list of planets since they feel it too is just a wayward member of the Ort cloud.
   
   
   
   By the time you get to the outer fringe of the solar system, there are massive numbers of bodies that range in size up to small planets. They travel in irregular orbits and like the asteroids, occasionally bump into one another and get pushed out of the cloud. This can result in them entering a new orbit closer to the sun and becoming a planet like body. We need to decide if we are going to consider these bodies planets or if we will just consider them to be wayward asteroids.
4. because all the science people said it was a planet, so therefor it is, according to them anyway
5. warmsoapywater is right, and I agree. I think Pluto should not be a planet.
6. Because it's big enough to be a planet.
7. wat