What is the difference between a star and a planet? And why is the sun considered a star and not a planet.?
337345
The star is a ball of gasses.. a planet is rock.
937727
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pluto\n\non 24 august 2006, the international astronomical union reclassified pluto.\n\npluto does orbit the sun, is ball-shaped and is not a satellite, but it does not have an isolated orbit (a bunch of other similar bodies have similar orbits.) so it is not a planet.\n\ni have been waiting for this since i was about ten when i learned that pluto didn't fit the pattern set by the major bodies in the solar system so it was an anomaly. it just felt "out of place". now that astronomers have found hundreds of other bodies with similar orbits, classifying "134340 pluto" as a planet is even more irrational. i feel somewhat satisfied, but i don't know how long this will drag on tho. many planetary astronomers are satisfied that the definition is rigorous enuf. i can accept that the definition is flawed, but i can not accept that "134340 pluto" is a planet.\n\nthis was the right thing to do, believe me. this does not change anything about pluto or the solar system. this just corrects the mistake of classifying pluto as a planet initially.\n\nthis same thing happened has happened before.  in 1800, an astronomer found a body orbiting between the orbits of mars and jupiter and thought it was a planet.  astronomers finally stopped classifying them as planets after they found several other bodies with similar orbits, and no one thinks ceres, pallas, juno, and vesta are planets today.\n\nmany astronomers consider pluto and charon to be a binary system, but two small bodies orbit that system. they are called nix and hydra.\n\nincidentally, "134340 pluto" was never a moon of neptune. neptune did capture triton. this is why triton has a retrograde orbit
156280
no...stars are not planets, they are comprised primarily of extemely high and volatile gases that burn without oxygen.
700350
They aren't.  Of the nearly 200 stars that have been identified as having at least one planet, about fifteen are known to have more than one planet, including 55 Cancri, which has at least four..Our current problem is just being able to identify planets much smaller than Jupiter, although one about the size of our Moon has been identified as part of a system in orbit around a pulsar.  For a complete up to date list, go to wikipedia and enter "exoplanets" in the search box.\nYou may have been confused by some theories that stars with Jovian sized planets in very close orbits may not have more distant planets, but that has nothing to do with stability, and seems to be wrong anyway.
568567
Your teacher.\n\nThe sun is the center of our solar system (thus the terminology), and all of the planets circle around the sun.\n\nJust to clarify on one point...The sun is not the center of the universe.  It is the center of our solar system.  There are thousands of solar systems in our universe, and our sun is not at the center of these.
121936
Is the sun a planet?  Is the moon a star?  Is the earth yellow and full and made of cheese?
1095925
Stars revolve around the center of the galaxy.\nThe Sun revolves around the center of the milky way galaxy.
330346
As of right now, scientists believe that planets are by-products of the formation of stars. A star is formed when particles in a swirling cloud of dust and gas (a nebula) get closer and closer together and begin to combine hydrogen atoms to form helium atoms. This produces lots of energy (which is why stars, like the Sun, shine). Planets are the leftover "clumps" of dust and gas that do not produce their own energy.
216942
Our sun is indeed a star. As a star,it will go through all the phases that other stars go through like BIG BANG and etc. Yes,our sun will explode one day and that day will be in another million or billion years of time. So,don't worry about it now. Worry about your great grandchildren. Anyway i hope that i had answered your question. Take care.
178092
Not necessarily.  A star is only a sun if it has planets around them.  But all stars look like suns.
118270
There are alot of objects that exist beyond Pluto. Yet, at this point none of these is really large enough to be considered a planet. Check the source link for more info.
767889
The International Astronomical Union decided that Pluto was no longer a planet.  Instead, they decided to classify it as a "dwarf planet".\n\nSee the details below.\n\nRESOLUTION 5A\nThe IAU therefore resolves that "planets" and other bodies in our Solar System, except satellites, be defined into three distinct categories in the following way:\n\n(1) A "planet" [footnote 1] is a celestial body that (a) is in orbit around the Sun, (b) has sufficient mass for its self-gravity to overcome rigid body forces so that it assumes a hydrostatic equilibrium (nearly round) shape, and (c) has cleared the neighbourhood around its orbit.\n\n(2) A "dwarf planet" is a celestial body that (a) is in orbit around the Sun, (b) has sufficient mass for its self-gravity to overcome rigid body forces so that it assumes a hydrostatic equilibrium (nearly round) shape [footnote 2] , (c) has not cleared the neighbourhood around its orbit, and (d) is not a satellite.\n\n(3) All other objects [footnote 3] except satellites orbiting the Sun shall be referred to collectively as "Small Solar-System Bodies".\n\n\nFootnote 1: The eight "planets" are: Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune.\n\nFootnote 2: An IAU process will be established to assign borderline objects into either dwarf planet and other categories.\n\nFootnote 3: These currently include most of the Solar System asteroids, most Trans-Neptunian Objects (TNOs), comets, and other small bodies.\n\nRESOLUTION 6A\nThe IAU further resolves:\n\nPluto is a "dwarf planet" by the above definition and is recognized as the prototype of a new category of trans-Neptunian objects.
1166968
There are many differences.\n\nBy the wording of your question, it sounds like you are speaking about the movement of celestial bodies.\n\nMost stars (except the sun, seem to stay in the same position in relation to one another.  The sun, moon and   the planets, change their position against the background of the "fixed" stars.  \n\nThis is because the objects in our solar system are close to us, so their change in position is much easier to see.  The fixed stars are so much further away, that their motion is harder to detect.\n\nThis is similar to the experience of riding in a car.  If you look at a distant mountain,  the appearance of it doesn't change very quickly.  But as you come close to a street or a building, the appearance changes dramatically. \n\nThe reason is that if you measure apparent motion by an angle,  an object twice as far from you must move twice the distance across your Field of vision to have the same apparent motion.
625420
A star is any massive gaseous body in outer space, just like the Sun. Unlike a planet, a star generates energy through nuclear fusion and therefore emits light. All stars except the Sun appear as shining points in the nighttime sky that twinkle because of the effect of the Earth's atmosphere and their distance from us. The Sun is also a star, but it is close enough to Earth to appear as a disk instead, and to provide daylight.
461110
Yes the Sun is a star.\n\nAnd off topic...\n\nDoes anybody find excessive cutting and pasting a boor??
906543
1. Its mass, its age, its energy state\n\n2. The earth's atmosphere makes stars appear to twinkle owing to their vast distances from us. They appear as points of light and so the light rays are bent differently by small ongoing variations in the earths atmosphere and so cause minor movements and fluctuations. However planets are disks rather than points (even though our eyes do not perceive their size). They are large enough to not appear to move like stars do as the position variations caused by bending of light by the atmosphere are 'within' the size of the planetary disk. Also the visible planets are very very bright compared to most visible stars so variations in light intensity are not so obvious.\n\n3. This is a difficult one. For example:\n\nIs it hydrogen, the primordial element of the universe??\nIs it energy as energy is what makes it all happen??\nIs it gravity as gravity causes clouds of hydrogen to condense into stars??\nIs it fusion as without fusion of hydrogen and then other elements nothing works??\n\nNo I cannot answer it. I put this one in the "too hard" basket.
168791
Our sun is a star.  All stars could be called suns.  As for the size of space....  some theorize that space is expanding, some say that space is contracting, so I think there is no real answer to your question.  Personally, I think this goes beyond science and into meta-physics.