Why does Pluto fail the orbital clearing requirement according to its location in the solar system?
Answer
It resides within the crowded Kuiper Belt, sharing its path with many other sizable bodies.
Pluto's failure to meet the criterion of clearing its orbital neighborhood stems directly from its location beyond Neptune in the region known as the Kuiper Belt. This area is described as an immense ring filled with numerous other icy bodies. Because Pluto shares this crowded orbital path with a significant population of other sizable objects that are not its satellites, it has not gravitationally corralled or ejected the majority of material that shares its path, thus failing to establish itself as the gravitationally dominant object in that zone.
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