Will Pluto Be a Planet Again 2019
Should Pluto Be a Planet Again? Breezy Vote Offers Back up Subsequently Experts Debate
A friendly argue near Pluto's planethood yesterday (April 29) ended in an informal vote that came downwards in favor of reinstating the dwarf planet's condition.
Early in the morning Eastern fourth dimension, after a livestreamed Philosophical Society of Washington discussion earlier that evening, Alan Stern — principal investigator of the New Horizons mission that flew by Pluto — tweeted that his argument won the vote, which was open up to anyone who could access the PSW website, even those who were not members. Results showed 130 people voted in favor of making Pluto a planet and thirty were confronting. During the debate, Stern argued in favor of using a geophysical definition to define planethood. Briefly speaking, this suggests that planets must be those bodies massive enough to presume a most circular shape simply not massive enough to take nuclear fusion in the interior (like a star).
Related: Destination Pluto: NASA's New Horizons Mission in Pictures
But since 2006, the International Astronomical Union, represented in the debate by quondam IAU president Ron Ekers, has used another definition for planethood, which excludes Pluto. This definition says a planet must orbit the sun, must have a nigh circular shape and must take "cleared the neighborhood around its orbit." Historically, it'due south that third indicate that has caused the nigh contention amidst Pluto planethood advocates, given the number of asteroids orbiting nearly fifty-fifty the larger planets.
The argue over Pluto'southward planetary status intensified after the New Horizons mission flew past the dwarf planet in 2015. New Horizons revealed a world of surprises: large mountains, a possible internal ocean and a tenuous "exosphere" or very thin atmosphere. Given Pluto's complex geology, Stern and some other members of the astronomical community began arguing that Pluto should be designated as a planet one time more.
On the naming of things
The contend went over the points in detail for and against Pluto being a planet. Ekers' presentation focused on the history of the IAU, which was originally formed in 1919 to coordinate clocks and issue reports via telegram about findings related to astronomy.
"Coordinating all the clocks that are in the world is not itself science, but if we don't do that, information technology makes the pursuit of science hard; it'south a practical function, which these international unions have to exercise," Ekers said.
By the aforementioned token, he argued, assigning categories to planets is also not science, but a way of describing objects so that scientists tin communicate. Other examples of this type of conclusion include agreeing on constellation names and boundaries, or describing species (such as humans, or human sapiens) past their genus and a specific name.
Pluto was discovered in 1930, amidst a search for a planet that was believed to be causing irregularities in the orbit of Neptune, Ekers said. Pluto was also minor to cause these perturbations, and afterward calculations showed that the offset calculations of Neptune'southward orbit were wrong. Merely it was a lucky notice nonetheless. The diminutive Pluto was closer to the sunday at that betoken in its orbit than information technology is now and easier to spot in telescopes bachelor at the fourth dimension.
It wasn't until half-dozen decades later that other objects shut to Pluto'due south size were discovered in the Kuiper Belt, a region of icy objects across Neptune. Then Mike Brown, an astronomer at the California Found of Technology, led the discovery of an object called 2003 UB313 that was believed to be larger than Pluto. "No name could be assigned [by the IAU] because there was no planet definition," Ekers said. (Today, nosotros know that globe by the proper noun Eris.)
The IAU twice asked the planetary systems division to come up upward with a definition of a planet; with the experts gridlocked, the IAU formed a naming committee that included both international representation and people working within and outside of planetary science (such as historians and educators).
The committee asked that their discussions non be fabricated public, which Ekers acknowledged may have been a fault, but he added that media were invited (and present) at the determination that fabricated Pluto a dwarf planet.
The vote took place at the Baronial 2006 IAU meeting in Prague, which included 424 voting members (out of a total membership of nine,000). The majority vote was for Pluto to exist redesignated as a dwarf planet, along with a number of other "trans-Neptunian objects" discovered in the few years before the vote. A divide resolution, suggesting that dwarf planets should be named planets, failed by a big margin, he added.
"This is non a vote about science," Ekers said. "The vote at the IAU is nearly an agreement on how you lot name things, and that was an important difference."
Arguing for expertise
Stern then took the stage, outlining what he saw as issues with the IAU vote. He brought up the matter of expertise in the IAU planet definition committee, arguing it should have been fabricated up of planetary scientists: "If, God prevent, somebody here was diagnosed with a neurological trouble, I would hope y'all would go to a neurologist and non a podiatrist, or some other form of physician, because expertise does affair."
He provided a quick historical overview of iii "game changers" that were fundamental to what he called the "dwarf planet revolution": the discovery that oceans are mutual on other bodies in our solar organisation, the discovery of the Kuiper Chugalug of icy objects that prove what the solar organisation looked like early in its history and the discovery of small worlds such as Pluto — most of which were not constitute until the early 21st century.
Visitors — perhaps aboard the USS Enterprise of "Star Trek" — would look at Pluto and say that they are orbiting a planet, Stern said. "Information technology has an atmosphere made of the same stuff nosotros are breathing," he argued. He cited its mountain ranges, glaciers, avalanches and "all the hallmarks of planetary processes" visible on the surface.
Related: New Horizons' Dramatic Journey to Pluto Revealed in New Book
He besides took Ekers to task on two points regarding the IAU. Stern argued that the IAU deliberately engineered the planetary definition so that information technology would be easier to memorize the number of planets in the solar system — Ekers responded that if Stern heard that, information technology was probably a joke made at the time of the determination. Stern as well said no planet can fully articulate its orbit of debris every bit it circles the sun, while Ekers argued that the asteroids and comets that we exercise see are in resonance (in orbits coincident) with planetary orbits.
Stern as well argued that farther out in the solar system, it is harder to clear away pocket-sized objects because they move so much slower in their orbits around the lord's day than exercise objects that are closer due to the nature of how orbits piece of work. This ways that planets need to be more and more massive in the outer reaches of the solar system to clear away pocket-sized objects. Even Earth wouldn't qualify as a planet if you moved information technology out to 100 Earth-lord's day distances from the dominicus — "Information technology just breeds defoliation," Stern said.
Stern and Ekers shook hands later on the debate and shared a question and answer flow with the audience, in which they farther antiseptic their positions. While Pluto's planethood status didn't modify following the debate, it does form part of a larger set of studies and questions that continue — even most 13 years afterwards Pluto was designated a dwarf planet.
- Is Pluto a Planet? New Paper Adds to Decade-Long Debate
- Dwarf Planets of Our Solar System (Infographic)
- Pluto Flyby Anniversary: The Well-nigh Amazing Photos from NASA'due south New Horizons
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Elizabeth Howell, Ph.D., is a contributing writer for Space.com since 2012. As a proud Trekkie and Canadian, she tackles topics similar spaceflight, diversity, science fiction, astronomy and gaming to help others explore the universe. Elizabeth's on-site reporting includes two homo spaceflight launches from Kazakhstan, and embedded reporting from a simulated Mars mission in Utah. She holds a Ph.D. and M.Sc. in Space Studies from the University of North Dakota, and a Bachelor of Journalism from Canada's Carleton University. Her latest book, NASA Leadership Moments, is co-written with astronaut Dave Williams. Elizabeth first got interested in space after watching the picture Apollo thirteen in 1996, and still wants to be an astronaut anytime.
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