Decades ago, the public was astounded as Pluto was demoted from being a planet to a "dwarf planet". Now, several scientists have come up with a campaign to restore Pluto's former identity.
In an article in Reuters, six scientists from the United States provided a more expounded and broadened classifications for celestial bodies which make Pluto deserving of its former identity as a planet. The said scientists tackled in the paper which was presented at the international planetary science conference at Texas that Pluto actually classifies as a planet due to their updated criteria on shape, geological properties, and surface features.
Kirby Runyon, a planetary scientist at Johns Hopkins University, shared in an interview with the Washington Post that the debate over restoring Pluto as a planet is like the debates on religion and politics. He used the analogy as scientists like him get worked up on finding arguments over the topic.
Way back in 2006, the International Astronomical Union (IAU) concluded that all eight planets of the solar system have their respective gravitational dominance and that they also orbit the sun. Another classification also stated that the eight planets can control the motion of the nearby bodies such as Earth's moon, and this outcasts Pluto as it failed to do so.
Runyon and his colleagues argue that the IAU definition is actually worthless if researchers wanted to delve on the intrinsic properties of the world including Pluto. Runyon's team proposes a sub-classification system which will work just like the hierarchal method in biology. Through this proposal, several celestial bodies will be reclassified such as Earth's moon which can be noted as a planet.
Runyon further imparted that with their proposal, they don't really want to focus on IAU's standards such as planets should orbit the sun. His team wanted to focus more on the geophysical aspects of the planets. With this, he gave a new definition to a planet being a body that is massive enough which has gravity that pulls it into a sphere but not to the extent that it will go into the process of nuclear fusion.
