There’s been a fierce debate over the past two decades about the standing of the distant icy world of Pluto after it was contentiously stripped of its planethood and reclassified as a dwarf planet.
Nasa chief Jared Isaacman has indicated that he might revisit the matter, but it won’t be an easy decision because scientists are still “worlds apart” on the issue, according to The Observer.
Pluto was discovered on 18 February 1930 by an American astronomer called Clyde Tombaugh. For 76 years the “tiny ball of rock and ice” was recognised as the ninth, smallest and most distant planet of the solar system. But in 2006, nine years after Tombaugh died, members of the International Astronomical Union voted on the criteria for a planet.
To qualify, the group decided, an object must orbit the Sun, be nearly round in shape and be the largest object in its path. Pluto meets the first two conditions, but not the third, because it shares its orbit with other icy objects in a region called the Kuiper Belt. So its status was downgraded to dwarf planet.
Now, Nasa boss Isaacman has signalled that the US space agency might re-examine the case for Pluto to be given its planet status back.
With an “echo of Maga”, “make Pluto a planet again” is a phrase that suggests a “nostalgic journey back to a past of certainties”, when “everything was in its right place in the heavens”, added The Observer. But “actually it’s the Plutonists who represent the argument for radical change”, and vocal supporter and planetary scientist Alan Stern has calculated that there might be as many as 1,000 planets in the solar system.
But first, the best thing that Nasa and other “Pluto advocates” can do is “escalate the discussion”, said Space.com. |
