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Pluto is considered a dwarf planet because A., it is the smallest planet (now not considered a planet anymore) in the Milky Way and B., because a larger planet was discovered to be behind it. Therefore, Pluto is no longer officially a planet, and is now a "dwarf" planet, compared to the others.
Pluto was discovered in 1930, and recognised then as being the ninth planet. Over more recent years though, more and more objects like Pluto were discovered further out. They approached the size of Pluto, or in the case of Eris, thought to be even larger.

Astronomers were faced with a dilemma, either we kept adding planets to the list, or we had to redefine what a planet actually was. In 2006, a new definition for a planet was established. It had to be approximately round, it had to orbit the sun and it had to have cleared its orbit of all other objects - so that at that distance from the sun, there were no other sizable bodies. Pluto is not large enough to have done the latter, while all other remaining planets have, so it was downgraded to a dwarf planet.

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