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Saturday, August 24, 2019 marked an unfortunate anniversary for planetary scientists. It was 13 years to the day that the official definition of Pluto changed – what was once numbered among the planets of the solar system was now only a humble dwarf planet.
But not everyone agrees with the decision of the International Astronomical Union – and now, NASA's director, Jim Bridenstine, joins the chorus to declare support for Pluto's membership in the Solar System Planet Club.
"Just for you to know that in my opinion, Pluto is a planet," he said during a visit to the university's aerospace engineering science building. from Colorado to Boulder.
"You can write that NASA's administrator once again declared Pluto a planet.I am sticking to that, that's the way I've learned it and I'm Commits to it. "
My favorite soundbyte of the day that will probably not reach the television. It came from NASA's administrator, Jim Bridenstine. As a supporter of Pluto, I really enjoyed that. # 9wx #PlutoLoversRejoice @JimBridenstine pic.twitter.com/NdfQWW5PSZ
– Cory Reppenhagen (@CReppWx) August 23, 2019
Now, that does not change anything officially, and his reasoning is a bit easy – having learned something in one way does not mean it has to stay that way, thanks to geocentrism. It's a casual remark, and that's fine.
But it turns out that planetary scientists have been hitting Planet Pluto's drum for years and that their reasons are a little more taken into account. In fact, a lot more.
When IAU removed Pluto from the list of nine planets in the solar system in August 2006, the move was a corollary of its official definitions of planets and dwarf planets.
Before that, there was no official definition of these objects, which created problems when astronomer Mike Brown of the California Institute of Technology and his colleagues discovered an object that appeared to be larger than Pluto. (This object was later designated dwarf planet and named Eris, after the Greek goddess of conflict and discord.)
The difference between a planet and a dwarf planet that changed the status of Pluto? Pluto – suspended as in the asteroid field of the Kuiper belt – has not cleaned up "the neighborhood around its orbit" from other rocks.
This helped to solve the perceived problem of other objects of the same size as Pluto, of which there are potentially hundreds. If Pluto was in the Planet club, what was stopping the rest of the fray?
Global Science Scientist Alan Stern, head of NASA's New Horizon mission, expressed his disappointment at the disappointment caused by the decision to de-plan Pluto since it was taken.
"My conclusion is that the definition of IAU is not only impractical and inextricable, but also scientifically flawed and contradictory to the point of not being able to be firmly defended against claims of scientific negligence," rigor "and convincing classification ", he wrote in September 2006.
"The New Horizons project, along with a growing number of people, and hundreds, if not thousands, of professional research astronomers and global scientists, will not recognize the resolution of the IAU on the definition of the planet of August 24, 2006. "
And so he does not have it. In fact, earlier this year, he debated Ron Ekers of the IAU, defending Pluto's planet status.
It is not just that only 424 of the approximately 9,000 IAU members voted on the resolution, nor did hundreds of planetary scientists immediately apply against it.
It is also that Pluto has its own multilayered atmosphere, its organic compounds, its climate, its moons.
It has landscapes – rocky mountain ranges and vast plains. There are avalanches, maybe plutoquakes, maybe even liquid oceans. And that the definition based on orbital compensation has no historical merit.
And even if that was the case, one could argue that the other planets did not clean their quarters either – there are a lot of asteroids hanging around the Earth and Jupiter's orbits. (although not as much as the Kuiper belt.)
Scientists from last year argued that a planet should be defined as an object that has become large enough to become a sphere.
"It turns out that it's an important milestone in the evolution of a planetary body, because apparently, when that happens, it initiates an active geology into the body." ", explained the planet physicist Philip Metzger of the University of Central Florida.
Until now, IAU has shown no sign of backing, any more than Pluto's supporters. Maybe Bridenstine will join the Pluto team to resume the fight. And we, for our part, are ready to welcome our hundreds of new planetary buddies.
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