Question

Why is Pluto so small, compared to the gas giants? Pick the one best answer.

A.Pluto was so far away from the Sun that it was too cold for gases to condense and create a gas giant

B.Pluto is small right now, but it is still growing: in the far future it will be as large as Neptune

C.Dwarf planets are always smaller than gas giants

D.The density of the building blocks was lower where Pluto formed compared to where Uranus and Neptune formed

E.Pluto is not a planet, rather it is a moon of Neptune that got ejected

Answer 1

Option A is correct.

Pluto was so far away from the Sun that it was too cold for gases to condense and create a gas giant

Less is known about Pluto than the planets of the solar system because of its great distance from the sun. Pluto's orbit varies, causing it periodically to come closer to the sun than Neptune, but at its furthest it is more than 4 billion miles from the sun. It is located in the Kuiper Belt, a ring of objects such as asteroids and dwarf planets at the outer edge of the solar system. Pluto's surface appears to be mostly composed of frozen nitrogen. Its mass and volume are less than one percent of Earth's.