Why I Think Pluto Is a Planet
By: Justin Li
In two recent articles ”When Is a Planet” from NASA and ”What Is a Planet Not a Planet?” by Daniel Santos, both discuss Pluto’s change. Both articles stated that the change created lots of arguments about Pluto’s change that continue to this day. I strongly believe that Pluto’s should remain a planet because of the IAU’s vague definition and because of Pluto’s identity in history.
I strongly believe that Pluto should be a planet is because of the IAU’s vague definition. In the article ”What Is a Planet” from NASA, the definition of a planet is that it (1) must orbit a star (sun), (2) it must be big enough for gravity to squash it into a ball, (3) it must clear its orbital path, this can be done by either pull smaller object into itself, or slingshot objects out of it path. The third part of the definition is the part where it is vague, in the article ”When Is a Planet” from NASA, it states that in order to be a planet, a planet must clear its neighborhood, but the definition does not state how much Pluto has to clear from it neighborhood to be a planet. Also, Earth, Mars, Jupiter, and Neptune share their orbit with asteroids but they are still planets, so why isn’t Pluto? In addition, the definition for a planet from the IAU only works for the planets in our solar system. Furthermore, the leader of the New Horizons Mission to Pluto, Alan Stern, called the definition of a planet the IAU approved “sloppy science’’ and “awful’’. Additionally, in the article ”When Is a Planet Not Planet?” by Daniel Santos, the text states that a website called Newscientist.com declared, “ it appears likely that the new definition will not be widely adopted be astronomers for everyday use. Also, many people believed that the vote was unfair, this is because the IAU had about 10,000 astronomers and only 500 got to vote, in addition to that, within days of the vote 304 astronomers signed a petition protesting the IAU’s definition. That is why I strongly believe that Pluto should be a planet, but that is not the only reason I think Pluto is a planet.
In the article ”When Is a Planet Not a Planet?” the text proclaims that people think Pluto should still remain a planet because of historical reasons. See, Pluto isn’t just an identity in science, but it also has an identity in history. All of the museums and textbooks would have to change everything they said about Pluto. This would cost way too much money and is not worth it. Also, Pluto has been a planet for 70 years and people has grown used to Pluto being a planet. According to one of my sources, many people believe that Pluto should be a planet partly of historical reasons. This is why I think that Pluto should be a planet and why I think the IAU’s decision was wrong.
In the articles” When Is a Planet” from NASA and ”What Is a Planet Not a Planet?” by Daniel Santos, they both discuss the controversy about Pluto’s change. Because of the IAU’s vague definition and historical reasons, I strongly believe that Pluto should be a planet.