Pluto should be re-classified as a planet, five year study says
Astronomers are calling for Pluto to be re-classified as a planet, and for more celestial bodies to be recognised as so, following the conclusion of a five-year study.
The push comes more than 10 years after Pluto was controversially demoted to a "dwarf planet" in 2006 by the International Astronomical Union (IAU).
But now in a paper to be published in the journal Icarus, a team of astronomers from around the world argue the IAU conflated science with the pseudoscience of astrology.
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Pluto was demoted to a dwarf-planet in 2006 after it failed to meet the new criteria IAU said makes a planet. AP/NASA
Instead they said a planet should be classified according to scientists' 16th century definition; a planet is any geologically active body in space.
By doing so it would expand the number of planets in the solar system
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Under the definition proposed by the study, up to 150 bodies could be classified as planets. ESO and Digitized Sky Survey 2
"We think there's probably over 150 planets in our solar system," said lead-author, and planetary physicist at the University of Central Florida, Philip Metzger.
"We are continuing to call Pluto a planet in our papers, we are continuing to call Titan and Triton and some other moons by the term 'planet'.
"Basically, we are ignoring the IAU."
Pluto — the solar's system's ninth planet since 1930 — was re-classifed as the IAU changed the definition of what makes a planet.
The organisation deemed a planet needs to be spherical, orbit the sun and needs to have cleared its orbit of other objects.
This last point is what nixed Pluto from the list.
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