The blog & portfolio of Matthew J. Rogers

Breaking news: Pluto no longer a planet

August 24, 2006

Despite reports last week that we might be increasing the number of planets in our solar system, the IAU has officially declared that Pluto is no longer a planet, closing the door on a 76-year old debate about the status of one of our furthest neighbors. Although it probably won’t be a popular decision among the general public, scientifically I have to agree it is the right thing to do. In recent years it has become clear that Pluto is just one of potentially hundreds or thousands of Kuiper belt objects — a region of space out past Neptune and Uranus that contains lots of what are now known as “dwarf planets” and “solar system bodies.” If we would have kept Pluto a planet and gone with the initial proposal for what constitutes a planet, in a few decades we could have ended up with literally dozens of planets, diluting the significance of the word.

What do you think? Should Pluto, being only a fraction of the size of our moon, have stayed a planet? If so, what would we do with all the other little Kuiper belt objects that would be at least as much of a planet as Pluto?

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  • Nick Peelman August 24th, 2006 at 6:27 pm

    Gotta start somewhere. I’ve always been a little curious how something with an orbit as eccentric as Pluto’s made the cut as a planet. There should be some median plane established based on the orbits of the *8* planets, then a +/- degree value set on that on what constitutes a planet. Not to mention it would need to be close enough where the sun can exert proper-enough gravity on it to make it turn a stable orbit. There are a handful of comets that deserve planet status more than Pluto…

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