be named without defining what a planet was.

[154] At the time, it was also thought that the size required for a trans-Neptunian object
to become round was about the same as that required for the moons of the giant planets (about 400 km diameter), a figure that
would have suggested about 200 round objects in the Kuiper belt and thousands more beyond. [197][198] Many astronomers argued that
the public would not accept a definition creating a large number of planets. [154]

The International Astronomical Union's

definition of a planet in the Solar System

1. Object is in orbit around the Sun

2. Object has sufficient mass for its self-gravity to overcome rigid body forces so that it assumes a hydrostatic equilibrium (nearly round) shape
3. Object has cleared the neighbourhood around its orbit

Source:"IAU 2006 General Assembly: Resolutions 5 and 6" (PDF). IAU. 24 August 2006. Retrieved 23 June 2009.

To acknowledge the problem, the International Astronomical Union (IAU) set about creating the definition of planet and produced
one in August 2006. Under this definition, the Solar System is considered to have eight planets (Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars,
Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune). Bodies that fulfill the first two conditions but not the third are classified as dwarf planets,
provided they are not natural satellites of other planets. Originally an IAU committee had proposed a definition that would have
included a larger number of planets as it did not include (c) as a criterion. [199] After much discussion, it was decided via a vote that
those bodies should instead be classified as dwarf planets.[192][200]

Criticisms and alternatives to IAU definition

See also: List of gravitationally rounded objects of the Solar System

The planetary-mass moons to scale,

compared with Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, and Pluto. Sub-planetary Proteus and Nereid (about the
same size as Mimas) have been included for comparison. Unimaged Dysnomia (intermediate in size
between Tethys and Enceladus) is not shown; it is in any case probably not a solid body. [90]

The IAU definition has not been universally used or accepted. In planetary geology, celestial objects are defined as planets by
geophysical characteristics. A celestial body may acquire a dynamic (planetary) geology at approximately the mass required for its
mantle to become plastic under its own weight. This leads to a state of hydrostatic equilibrium where the body acquires a stable,
round shape, which is adopted as the hallmark of planethood by geophysical definitions. For example: [201]

a substellar-mass body that has never undergone nuclear fusion and has enough gravitation to be round due to hydrostatic
equilibrium, regardless of its orbital parameters.[202]
In the Solar System, this mass is generally less than the mass required for a body to clear its orbit; thus, some objects that are
considered "planets" under geophysical definitions are not considered as such under the IAU definition, such as Ceres and Pluto.
[4]
(In practice, the requirement for hydrostatic equilibrium is universally relaxed to a requirement for rounding and compaction under
self-gravity; Mercury is not actually in hydrostatic equilibrium,[203] but is universally included as a planet regardless.)[204] Proponents of
such definitions often argue that location should not matter and that planethood should be defined by the intrinsic properties of an
object.[4] Dwarf planets had been proposed as a category of small planet (as opposed to planetoids as sub-planetary objects) and
planetary geologists continue to treat them as planets despite the IAU definition. [32]

The number of dwarf planets even among known objects is not certain. In 2019, Grundy et al. argued based on the low densities of
some mid-sized trans-Neptunian objects that the limiting size required for a trans-Neptunian object to reach equilibrium was in fact
much larger than it is for the icy moons of the giant planets, being about 900–1000 km diameter.[32] There is general consensus on
Ceres in the asteroid belt[205] and on the eight trans-Neptunians that probably cross this threshold—
Orcus, Pluto, Haumea, Quaoar, Makemake, Gonggong, Eris, and Sedna.[206][33]

Planetary geologists may include the nineteen known planetary-mass moons as "satellite planets", including Earth's Moon and
Pluto's Charon, like the early modern astronomers.[4][207] Some go even further and include as planets relatively large, geologically
evolved bodies that are nonetheless not very round today, such as Pallas and Vesta; [4] rounded bodies that were completely
disrupted by impacts and re-accreted like Hygiea;[208][209][110] or even everything at least the diameter of Saturn's moon Mimas, the
smallest planetary-mass moon. (This may even include objects that are not round but happen to be larger than Mimas, like
Neptune's moon Proteus.)[4]

Astronomer Jean-Luc Margot proposed a mathematical criterion that determines whether an object can clear its orbit during the
lifetime of its host star, based on the mass of the planet, its semimajor axis, and the mass of its host star. [210] The formula produces a
value called π that is greater than 1 for planets.[c] The eight known planets and all known exoplanets have π values above 100, while
Ceres, Pluto, and Eris have π values of 0.1, or less. Objects with π values of 1 or more are expected to be approximately spherical,
so that objects that fulfill the orbital-zone clearance requirement around Sun-like stars will also fulfill the roundness requirement. [211]

Exoplanets
Further information: Exoplanet § History of detection, and Brown dwarf

Even before the discovery of exoplanets, there were particular disagreements over whether an object should be considered a planet
if it was part of a distinct population such as a belt, or if it was large enough to generate energy by the thermonuclear
fusion of deuterium.[195] Complicating the matter even further, bodies too small to generate energy by fusing deuterium can form
by gas-cloud collapse just like stars and brown dwarfs, even down to the mass of Jupiter: [212] there was thus disagreement about
whether how a body formed should be taken into account.[195]

In 1992, astronomers Aleksander Wolszczan and Dale Frail announced the discovery of planets around a pulsar, PSR B1257+12.
[40]
This discovery is generally considered to be the first definitive detection of a planetary system around another star. Then, on 6
October 1995, Michel Mayor and Didier Queloz of the Geneva Observatory announced the first definitive detection of an exoplanet
orbiting an ordinary main-sequence star (51 Pegasi).[213]

The discovery of exoplanets led to another ambigu