Science, Technology & Health: August 2019 Archives

NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine Says Pluto Is a Planet

Just because a few dozen scientists in 2006 decreed that Pluto isn't a planet doesn't make it so.

Saturday 24 August 2019 marked a vexing anniversary for planetary scientists. It was 13 years to the day that Pluto's official definition changed - what was once numbered among the planets of the Solar System was now but a humble dwarf planet.
But not everyone agreed with the International Astronomical Union's ruling - and now NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine has added his voice to the chorus declaring support for Pluto's membership in the Solar System Planet Club.

"Just so you know, in my view, Pluto is a planet," he said during a tour of the Aerospace Engineering Sciences Building at the University of Colorado Boulder.

Scientists classify things in all sorts of ways for many different purposes -- and maybe it's useful to think of Pluto as a "dwarf planet" for some purposes. That's fine. But our planets are more than scientific curiosities, they're cultural, civilizational, and species-ational icons with tremendous legacy and substance. No small group of humans has the power or authority to strip Pluto of it's iconic status or dictate to humanity what label we must use for it.