Can Pluto Be Reconsidered a Planet?

Oct 03, 2014 08:53 AM EDT

(Photo : pictures.reuters.com) Astronomers have found a small icy body far beyond Pluto and the Kuiper Belt, a discovery that calls into question exactly what was going on during the early days of the solar system.

The public says yes.

Eight years since the celestial body was demoted to a "dwarf planet," people have been making a big fuss about what rank Pluto should have in the solar system.

It all started when Pluto was discovered and added as the ninth planet of the solar system in 1930. Then, along came the skeptics, who in 1977, claimed Pluto is too small to be a planet.

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The International Astronomical Union (IAU), which acts as the authority assigning designations to celestial bodies, held a conference in 2006 that publicly stripped Pluto of its status as a planet.

The IAU based its decision on its definition of a planet:

1. Orbits around the sun

2. Is round (or nearly round)

3. Must clear the neighborhood around its orbit.

While Pluto is indeed round and orbits the sun, it isn't the biggest planet on the block. It was therefore downgraded, leaving the solar system with only eight planets to date.

But on September 18, the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics revisited the IAU's rules by hosting a debate on the definition of a planet.

A webcast event called "What Is a Planet?" brought in three experts to discuss Pluto's status.

Dr. Owen Gingerich, the chair of the IAU planet definition committee argued that Pluto is a planet. According to him, a planet is a culturally defined word that changes over time.

Dr. Gareth Williams, Minor Planet Center's associate director, contradicted Gingerich claims and defended the IAU definition while declaring that Pluto isn't a planet.

It was Dr. Dimitar Sasselov, director of the Harvard Origins of Life Initiative, who defined a planet as the smallest spherical lump of matter that formed around stars or their remnants. He, therefore concluded that Pluto is a planet.

The vote among the audience made up of teachers, scientists and civilians agreed with the views presented by Gingerich and Sasselov.

The vote isn't official and doesn't have any weight in the science community. The debate, however, ignited a spark that might give Pluto a chance to be considered as a planet once again.

TagsPluto, Pluto is a planet, Harvard-Smithsonian Center