The Pluto debate about its planetary status has flared up again. Now NASA is trying to reclassify Pluto as a planet.
Pluto lost its planetary title in 2006 and was downgraded to ‘dwarf planet’ following controversial votes by the International Astronomical Union (IAU). Since then, the decision has faced backlash from the scientific community.
The core of its de-classification lies in the IAU’s definition of a planet. By the standard definition, to be called a planet, a celestial body must orbit the Sun, be in close proximity, and have a gravitational influence that helps the body clear its surroundings of debris.
When it comes to Pluto, it fulfills only two requirements but falls short on the third, which becomes the reason for its demotion.
Here a question arises: what has changed now and why is NASA determined to bring back Pluto’s planethood?
Recently, NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman showed his support for making Pluto a planet again at a Senate committee hearing, saying, “I’m very much in the Make Pluto a Planet Again camp. We would like to escalate through the scientific community to revisit this discussion.”
According to the head of NASA, his agency is conducting research and will eventually come up with a convincing explanation, which will help convince the scientific community that Pluto is a full-fledged planet, validating the concept of astronomer Clyde Tombaugh who discovered it in 1930.
Still, some scientists are not in favor of reclassifying Plato as a planet. CalTech professor of planetary astronomy Michael E. Brown: “Pluto lost its planet status when it failed to grow large enough to be a planet about 4.5 billion years ago. We should never have called Pluto a planet.”
While the president could theoretically issue an executive order to “reenter” Pluto, this would be a symbolic gesture rather than a scientific reality.
In the world of astronomy, legal decrees have no weight; instead, the International Astronomical Union (IAU) serves as the global authority on the nomenclature and classification of celestial bodies.
