Will Pluto have the last laugh? A group of NASA scientists hopes so.
A group of members of the New Horizons mission to Pluto are making the case to redefine what constitutes as a planet to be more inclusive. The proposed definition would reinstate Pluto as a planet, and grant planetary status to the Earth’s moon and more than 100 other celestial bodies in our solar system.
Kirby Runyon of Johns Hopkins University is reigniting the debate over Pluto’s planetary status at the Lunar and Planetary Science Conference in Houston on Tuesday, USA Today reports.
First discovered and classified as a planet in 1930, Pluto had its planetary status dragged out from under its cosmic feet in 2006 because there appeared to be other objects like Pluto beyond the eighth planet (Neptune). Pluto was thus demoted to a “dwarf planet.”
“[Pluto has] everything going on on its surface that you associate with a planet,” Runyon said in a statement. “… There’s nothing nonplanet about it.”
Since Pluto’s demotion, debate over whether Pluto deserves to be classified as a planet or not has raged in the scientific community.
