New research claims that Pluto should be re-classified as a planet – Quartz

The wounds never healed. But then, how could they?

After more than a dozen years, astronomers are still in the lead following the 2006 decision by the International Astronomical Union (IAU) to demote Pluto from an official planet to a dwarf planet. The highly technical back and forth received a new contribution this week, in the form of a study that says the celestial body farthest from our solar system is also its "second most complex and interesting planet" .

Published in the journal Icarus, the study comes from astronomers at the University of Central Florida, who argue that the dynamic orbital trajectory of an object should be less important to define a planet than other classification details. "Pluto … has an underground ocean, a multilayered atmosphere, organic compounds, evidence of ancient lakes and multiple moons," writes co-author Philip Metzger in a statement. Metzger says that the identification of the planet should take into account the size of the celestial body, as well as the severity of its gravity.

The decision taken by IAU in 2006 dismissed this complexity as having something to do with the status of a planet as such, relegating Pluto to a contingent of more than a dozen small spherical objects floating beyond of the blue color of Neptune. Although Pluto is circling the sun, IAU officials have noted that he does not "clean his own orbit".

"Pluto is dead," said astronomer Mike Brown at the time. "Pluto is not a planet. There are finally officially eight planets in the solar system.

The announcement annoyed many astronomers, in part because Pluto's vote took place on the last day of the IAU annual meeting in Prague. Only 424 of the 13,000 member astronomers voted.

"I'm embarrassed for astronomy," Alan Stern told Space.com in 2006. "Less than 5 percent of the world's astronomers voted." Stern was responsible for NASA's New Horizon mission to Pluto and co-authored the new study.

Meanwhile, Pluto himself – caught in the gravitational pull of the sun and helpless to save face – is the real victim here. Of course, he might not order a play like Jupiter. He could never overshadow the splendor of Saturn, dripping with ringed eleganza. But Pluto has a lot to do, like its oceans and this malice reserved for the most mysterious and the most discreet of the excluded. While mere mortals bicker about who he is or not, Pluto continues his lonely walk around our sun. On paper, it is a reduced version of its old form, a ball of ice and rocks turning to 4.67 billion kilometers of us with its five companion moons, Charon, Styx, Nix, Kerberos and Hydra . But in our hearts, it's a lot more. Return to our arms, Pluto.