Eight years after being reduced to a "dwarf planet" by the International Astronomical Union, Pluto is finally getting some real push to become the ninth planet in our solar system again.
The Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, one of the largest astrophysical institutions in the world, held a public debate recently with three space authorities, including the former chair of the IAU's planet definition committee, Dr. Owen Gingerich, according to the Inquisitr.
The audience voted to reinstate Pluto as a planet at the end of the debate.
The current definition of a planet, made by the IAU, is a celestial body that:
1. Is in orbit around the Sun.
2. Has sufficient mass to assume hydrostatic equilibrium (a round shape).
3. Has "cleared the neighborhood" around its orbit.
When a non-satellite object meets two of these definitions, it's classified as a dwarf planet, though that category isn't a subsection of planets, according to the Inquisitr.
The initial decision to remove Pluto from the solar system was made in 2006 by the IAU, who decided Pluto was too small to qualify as a planet when compared to the other eight planets in the solar system.
A number of astronomical objects larger than Pluto have been discovered as well, like the dwarf planet Eris, that were never considered to be planets. If other bigger worlds weren't earning the classification, the IAU felt that Pluto shouldn't count as a planet either.
Despite being the former head of the same committee that voted on Pluto's demotion, Gingerich argued that Pluto was in fact a planet during the Harvard-Smithsonian debate.
"Even though a dwarf fruit tree is still a small fruit tree, and a dwarf hamster is still a small hamster," according to the Harvard-Smithsonian news blog.
Though the decision made by the Harvard-Smithsonian isn't the official word on planet classification, it could be a major step toward reopening the planet discussion and challenging the ruling.
Alan Stern, the principal investigator for NASA's New Horizon probe mission to Pluto, famously ridiculed the IAU's decision back in 2006, since less than 5 percent of all astronomers were included on the vote. He argued that since Earth, Mars, Jupiter and Neptune all share their orbits with asteroids, they also don't meet the true definition of a planet according to the IAU.
So what do you think? Should we reopen the debate on Pluto?
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