IAU definition of planet who had theorized on the existence of the large trans-Neptunian object Planet X, and Tombaugh been searching for Planet X when he found Pluto. Almost immediately after its discovery, however, astronomers questioned whether Pluto could be Planet X. Willy Ley wrote a column in 1956 titled "The Demotion of Pluto", stating that it "simply failed to live up to the advance publicity it received as 'Planet X' before its discovery. It has been a disappointment all along, for it did not turn out to be what one could reasonably have expected". In 1978, Pluto's moon Charon was discovered. By measuring
Dwarf planet Dwarf planet A dwarf planet is a planetary-mass object that is neither a true planet nor a natural satellite. That is, it is in direct orbit of a star, and is massive enough for its gravity to compress it into a hydrostatically equilibrious shape (usually a spheroid), but has not cleared the neighborhood of other material around its orbit. The term "dwarf planet" was adopted in 2006 as part of a three-way categorization of bodies orbiting the Sun, brought about by an increase in discoveries of objects farther away from the Sun than Neptune that rivaled Pluto in size, and