Pluto Might Again Be Called a Planet: Here is the Report of the New Research

To be or not be- the age-old loop seems to have captured Pluto too. Yes, the confusion and the conflicts remain on the edge again over Pluto being called as a planet in the solar system.

For all 90’s kids, the declaration of 2006 was definitely a surprise. All those childhood years of drawing the 9 planets all around the Sun seemed a lie when Pluto was degraded from the position of a planet to a dwarf planet.

The reasons stated back then at 2006, is being now nullified by researchers with substantial evidence. The air of confusion was never cleared out and time and again there had been news of re-honoring Pluto as a planet.

Ever since the declaration in the first place, there were confusions. In 2014, USA today released a report that said Pluto will be considered as a planet once again and welcomed back into the solar system fraternity. As per the mentions in the report, Owen Gingerich, the then chairman of the IAU planet committee said that the definition of the word “planet” is ever changing with time and going by that, Pluto can be called a planet. On the contrary of his statement, Gareth Williams associate director of the IAU's Minor Planet Center clearly stated that a planet is the one that:

•    Is round or almost round

•    Has an orbit around the Sun which means the celestial body needs to be the largest gravitational force in its own orbit.

•    It must not be surrounded by an object of similar characteristic and size

As per earlier reports, Pluto did not fulfill the criteria as frozen gases and Kuiper belt objects are using the orbit of Pluto. As per Williams, the third requirement was fulfilled by Pluto and clearly, it is not a majority game and so Pluto was kicked out the planet world. Williams also mentioned that Pluto is similar to other dwarf planets and sometimes it even intervenes the orbit of Neptune. Unlike the human world, neighborhood peeping is not allowed in the planet world. At that time, a debate was held between Owen Gingerich, Gareth Williams and Dimitar Sasselov who was the then director of Harvard Origins of Life Initiative. Sasselov and Gingerich both agreed that Pluto should be once again called a planet. But as per sources after this debate, no requests came from any astronomers to put the issue on agenda at the General Assembly of the IAU to revert the decision of 2006.

As per the latest research released by the University of Central Florida, the reasons for taking away the planetary status from Pluto seems invalid. As per a report published in the University website, the time when it was declared a non-planet had different standards and the research literature differs.

The recent declarations

Philip Metzger, the UCF planetary researcher, working at the college's Florida Space Institute, and the lead creator of the investigation called out for attention to this issue. He says that the standard fixed by IAU to characterize a planet does not pass by what is stated in the research literature. Subsequently, to survey the literature from the previous 200 years, Metzger said that just a single publicized paper has stated that about the orbit-clearing prerequisite to characterize a planet. The time was 1802. After this time, there were several reasoning stated to disapprove the point. Metzger defines such a definition as “sloppy” as with this logic no celestial body can then be called as a planet as none of them has clear orbits.

Metzger also informed that the IAU's definition that qualifies a celestial body as a planet had been nullified not for the first time but the planetary scientists long before said a no. He said, "We now have a list of well, over 100 recent examples of planetary scientists using the word planet in a way that violates the IAU definition, but they are doing it because it's functionally useful.”

The newest definition of a planet

According to Philip Metzger, a planet is defined with certain properties that may change with time. The elements of a planet's orbit are not consistent, and rather just the control of the body at a present time. Since they are always showing signs of change, they can't be the fundamental reason for establishing the definition of the planet. Metzger suggested that planets can be characterized on their size and shape with a specific gravity of their own. Also, that is not only a self-assertive definition as Metzger added that this is a critical situation in the development of a planetary body. When there is a change, there will be an initiation of active geology on the body of the planet. He mentioned that Pluto has the next complex geology after Earth with the evidence of several moons, lakes, multilayer atmosphere, organic compound, and underground ocean.