What is the definition of a Planet?

From wikipedia:
The definition of planet set in 2006 by the International Astronomical Union (IAU)
states that in the Solar System a planet is a celestial body that:
1. is in orbit around the Sun,
2. has sufficient mass to assume hydrostatic equilibrium (a nearly round shape),
and
3. has "cleared the neighbourhood" around its orbit.
So in layman's terms:
1. It's a body which is in orbit around the sun and not a satellite of a planet. e.g.
the moon is ruled out as being a planet because it orbits the earth.
2. Its shape is close to being the shape if it was made of water - e.g. close to a
sphere. If the object is spinning then centrifugal force will cause the radius at the
equator to be larger that the radius at the poles - so it's never a perfect sphere.
3. It has a clear area around it. In other words it has sucked up or pushed away any
other objects to become the dominant body in the area. It has been argued that
Neptune should be a dwarf planet for the reason that objects like Pluto keep
wandering through its orbit space. However Pluto has been locked into a phase in
which it orbits the sun twice for every three orbits of Neptune. If this were not the
case Pluto's orbit would be unstable. Therefore Neptune's much larger gravitational
force is in control.
f you insist on including Pluto, then that world would come after Neptune on the list;
Pluto is truly way out there, and on a wildly tilted, elliptical orbit (two of the several
reasons it got demoted). Interestingly, Pluto used to be the eighth planet, actually. More
on that below.

Terrestrial planets
The inner four worlds are called terrestrial planets, because, like Earth, their
surfaces are all rocky. Pluto, too, has a solid surface (and a very frozen one) but has
never been grouped with the four terrestrials.

Jovian planets
The four large outer worlds Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune are known as
the Jovian planets (meaning Jupiter-like) because they are all huge compared to the
terrestrial planets, and because they are gaseous in nature rather than having rocky
surfaces (though some or all of them may have solid cores, astronomers
say). According to NASA, "two of the outer planets beyond the orbit of Mars Jupiter
and Saturn are known as gas giants; the more distant Uranus and Neptune are
called ice giants." This is because, while the first two are dominated by gas, while the
last two have more ice. All four contain mostly hydrogen and helium.

Dwarf planets
The IAU definition of a full-fledged planet goes like this: A body that circles
thesun without being some other object's satellite, is large enough to be rounded by its
own gravity (but not so big that it begins to undergo nuclear fusion, like a star) and has
"cleared its neighborhood" of most other orbiting bodies. Yeah, thats a mouthful.
The problem for Pluto, besides its small size and offbeat orbit, is that it shares its space
with lots of other objects in the Kuiper Belt, beyond Neptune. Still, the demotion of
Pluto remains controversial.
The IAU planet definition puts other small, round worlds in the dwarf planetcategory,
including the Kuiper Belt objects Eris, Haumea, and Makemake.
Also now a dwarf planet is Ceres, a round object in the Asteroid Belt between Mars and
Jupiter. Ceres was actually considered a planet when discovered in 1801 and then later
deemed to be an asteroid. Some astronomers like to consider Ceres as a 10th planet
(not to be confused with Nibiru or Planet X), but that line of thinking opens up the
possibility of there being 13 planets, with more bound to be discovered.

The planets
Below is a brief overview of the eight primary planets in our solar system, in order from
the inner solar system outward:

Mercury
The closest planet to the sun, Mercury is only a bit larger than Earth's moon. Its day
side is scorched by the sun and can reach 840 degrees Fahrenheit (450 Celsius), but
on the night side, temperatures drop to hundreds of degrees below freezing. Mercury
has virtually no atmosphere to absorb meteor impacts, so its surface is pockmarked
with craters, just like the moon. Over its four-year mission, NASA's MESSENGER
spacecraft has revealed views of the planet that have challenged astronomers'
expectations.

Discovery: Known to the ancients and visible to the naked eye

Named for: Messenger of the Roman gods

Diameter: 3,031 miles (4,878 km)

Orbit: 88 Earth days

Day: 58.6 Earth days

Venus
The second planet from the sun, Venus is terribly hot, even hotter than Mercury. The
atmosphere is toxic. The pressure at the surface would crush and kill you. Scientists
describe Venus situation as a runaway greenhouse effect. Its size and structure are
similar to Earth, Venus' thick, toxic atmosphere traps heat in a runaway "greenhouse
effect." Oddly, Venus spins slowly in the opposite direction of most planets.
The Greeks believed Venus was two different objects one in the morning sky and
another in the evening. Because it is often brighter than any other object in the sky
except for the sun and moon Venus has generated many UFO reports.

Discovery: Known to the ancients and visible to the naked eye

Named for: Roman goddess of love and beauty

Diameter: 7,521 miles (12,104 km)

Orbit: 225 Earth days

Day: 241 Earth days

Earth
The third planet from the sun, Earth is a waterworld, with two-thirds of the planet
covered by ocean. Its the only world known to harbor life. Earths atmosphere is rich in
life-sustaining nitrogen and oxygen. Earth's surface rotates about its axis at 1,532 feet
per second (467 meters per second) slightly more than 1,000 mph (1,600 kph) at
the equator. The planet zips around the sun at more than 18 miles per second (29 km
per second).

Diameter: 7,926 miles (12,760 km)

Orbit: 365.24 days

Day: 23 hours, 56 minutes

Mars
Mars researchers are focusing both Earth-based and planet orbiting sensors to
better understand sources of methane on the red planet. Image

The fourth planet from the sun, is a cold, dusty place. The dust, an iron oxide, gives the
planet its reddish cast. Mars shares similarities with Earth: It is rocky, has mountains
and valleys, and storm systems ranging from localized tornado-like dust devils to planetengulfing dust storms. It snows on Mars. And Mars harbors water ice. Scientists think it
was once wet and warm, though today its cold and desert-like.
Mars' atmosphere is too thin for liquid water to exist on the surface for any length of
time. Scientists think ancient Mars would have had the conditions to support life, and
there is hope that signs of past life possibly even present biology may exist on the
Red Planet.

Discovery: Known to the ancients and visible to the naked eye

Named for: Roman god of war

Diameter: 4,217 miles (6,787 km)

Orbit: 687 Earth days

Day: Just more than one Earth day (24 hours, 37 minutes)

Jupiter
The fifth planet from the sun, Jupiter is huge and is the most massive planet in our solar
system. Its a mostly gaseous world, mostly hydrogen and helium. Its swirling clouds are
colorful due to different types of trace gases. A big feature is the Great Red Spot, a giant
storm which has raged for hundreds of years. Jupiter has a strong magnetic field, and
with dozens of moons, it looks a bit like a miniature solar system.

Discovery: Known to the ancients and visible to the naked eye

Named for: Ruler of the Roman gods

Diameter: 86,881 miles (139,822 km)

Orbit: 11.9 Earth years

Day: 9.8 Earth hours

Saturn
The shadow of Saturn's moon Mimas dips onto the planet's rings and straddles the
Cassini Division in this natural color image taken as Saturn approaches its August
2009 equinox.

The sixth planet from the sun is known most for itsrings. When Galileo Galilei first
studied Saturn in the early 1600s, he thought it was an object with three parts. Not
knowing he was seeing a planet with rings, the stumped astronomer entered a small
drawing a symbol with one large circle and two smaller ones in his notebook, as a
noun in a sentence describing his discovery. More than 40 years later, Christiaan
Huygens proposed that they were rings. The rings are made of ice and rock. Scientists

are not yet sure how they formed. The gaseous planet is mostly hydrogen and helium. It
has numerous moons.

Discovery: Known to the ancients and visible to the naked eye

Named for: Roman god of agriculture

Diameter: 74,900 miles (120,500 km)

Orbit: 29.5 Earth years

Day: About 10.5 Earth hours

Uranus
The seventh planet from the sun, Uranus is an oddball. Its the only giant
planet whose equator is nearly at right angles to its orbit it basically
orbits on its side. Astronomers think the planet collided with some other
planet-size object long ago, causing the tilt. The tilt causes extreme
seasons that last 20-plus years, and the sun beats down on one pole or the
other for 84 Earth-years. Uranus is about the same size as Neptune.
Methane in the atmosphere gives Uranus its blue-green tint. It
has numerous moons and faint rings.

Discovery: 1781 by William Herschel (was thought previously to be a star)

Named for: Personification of heaven in ancient myth

Diameter: 31,763 miles (51,120 km)

Orbit: 84 Earth years

Day: 18 Earth hours

Neptune
The eighth planet from the sun, Neptune is known for strong winds sometimes faster
than the speed of sound. Neptune is far out and cold. The planet is more than 30 times
as far from the sun as Earth. It has a rocky core. Neptune was the first planet to be
predicted to exist by using math, before it was detected. Irregularities in the orbit of

Uranus led French astronomer Alexis Bouvard to suggest some other might be exerting
a gravitational tug. German astronomer Johann Galle used calculations to help find
Neptune in a telescope. Neptune is about 17 times as massive as Earth.

Discovery: 1846

Named for: Roman god of water

Diameter: 30,775 miles (49,530 km)

Orbit: 165 Earth years

Day: 19 Earth hours

Pluto (Dwarf Planet)

Once the ninth planet from the sun, Pluto is unlike other planets in many respects. It is
smaller than Earth's moon. Its orbit carries it inside the orbit of Neptune and then way
out beyond that orbit. From 1979 until early 1999, Pluto had actually been the eighth
planet from the sun. Then, on Feb. 11, 1999, it crossed Neptune's path and once again
became the solar system's most distant planet until it was demoted to dwarf planet
status. Pluto will stay beyond Neptune for 228 years. Plutos orbit is tilted to the main
plane of the solar system where the other planets orbit by 17.1 degrees. Its a
cold, rocky world with only a very ephemeral atmosphere. NASA's New Horizons
mission performed history's first flyby of the Pluto system on July 14,
2015. [Related: New Horizons' Pluto Flyby: Latest News, Images and
Video]

Discovery: 1930 by Clyde Tombaugh

Named for: Roman god of the underworld, Hades

Diameter: 1,430 miles (2,301 km)

Orbit: 248 Earth years

Day: 6.4 Earth day

Planet Nine
Planet Nine orbits the sun at a distance that is 20 times farther out than the orbit of
Neptune. (The orbit of Neptune is 2.7 billion miles from the sun at its closest point.) The

strange world's orbit is about 600 times farther from the sun than the Earth's orbit is
from the star.
Scientists have not actually seen Planet Nine directly. Its existence was inferred
by its gravitational effects on other objects in the Kuiper Belt, a region at the fringe of the
solar system that is home to icy objects left over from the birth of the sun and planets.