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<p>[QUOTE=&quot;laurele, post: 730502, member: 21408&quot;]A dwarf star is still a type of star. Our sun happens to be one. Four percent of the International Astronomical Union voted on a nonsensical definition stating that Pluto is a dwarf planet but that dwarf planets are not planets at all! This is one reason the definition has been rejected by so many people. The other is that the IAU definition classifies objects solely by where they are while ignoring what they are. If Earth were in Pluto&#039;s orbit, according to the IAU definition, it would not be a planet either. The alternative planet definition favored by many scientists is simply that a planet is a non-self-luminous spheroidal body orbiting a star. The spheroidal part is important because it means the object is large enough for its own gravity to pull it into a round shape--a characteristic of planets and not of shapeless asteroids. This definition gives our solar system 13 planets and counting: Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Ceres, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune, Pluto, Haumea, Makemake, and Eris.[/QUOTE]</p><p><br /></p>

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