Scientists want Pluto back in the planet list

Long ago, Pluto was removed from the planet list, however, scientists now suggest that Pluto should be given its lost status back.

New research from the University of Central Florida states that the reason Pluto lost its planet status is not valid and instead it should be reclassified as a planet.

Back in 2006, Pluto was removed from the planet list since it shares its orbit with frozen gases and objects in the Kuiper belt due to neighboring planet Neptune’s gravity influence. This behavior of Pluto didn’t match the definition of a planet set up International Astronomical Union, which states that a planet is required to ‘clear its orbit’ or be the largest gravitational force in its orbit, reported Science Daily.

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In the new study published in Icarus, lead author Philip Metzger asserted that this standard for categorizing planets is not supported in the research literature. Metzger reviewed ancient scientific literature that used the clearing-orbit condition to classify planet and it was based on since-disproven reasoning. He stated that moons including Jupiter’s Europa and Saturn’s Titan have been called planets by planetary scientists since the time of Galileo.

Metzger expressed, “The IAU definition would say that the fundamental object of planetary science, the planet, is supposed to be a defined on the basis of a concept that nobody uses in their research. And it would leave out the second-most complex, interesting planet in our solar system.

“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. It’s a sloppy definition. They didn’t say what they meant by clearing their orbit. If you take that literally, then there are no planets, because no planet clears its orbit.”

Metzger mentioned that a planet’s definition should be based on its intrinsic properties instead of the changing ones like the dynamics of a planet’s orbit. He recommended that a planet should rather be classified based on if it’s large enough that its gravity permits it to have a spherical shape, wrote Phys.org.

For example, Pluto has an underground ocean, a multilayer atmosphere, organic compounds, evidence of ancient lakes and multiple moons. “It’s more dynamic and alive than Mars. The only planet that has more complex geology is the Earth.”