A proposed change to the definition of “planet” could return it to its former status.
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Planetary Scientists of NASA, including those who are now associated with the agency’s New Horizons mission – intended for exploring Pluto – want to redefine the characterization and norms that label the eligibility of a celestial object to be called as a planet.
In a vote in 2006, the International Astronomical Union (IAU) chose to reduce the status of Pluto to that of a dwarf planet, after astronomers argued that its unusual orbit, which was still littered with space junk, made it unqualified. This is NASA’s way to explore potential extraterrestrial life in another planet and its natural satellite.
If approved, it would reverse a decision the International Astronomical Union (IAU) made a decade ago to demote Pluto to a “dwarf planet”.
Finally, and “most severely”, they say, this zone-clearing stipulation means the mathematics used to confirm if a cosmic body is actually a planet must be distance-dependent, because a “zone” must be clarified.
NASA also recently invited the public to help search for possible undiscovered worlds in the outer reaches of our solar system and in neighboring interstellar space. The new definition eliminates two of those criteria, with the authors suggesting a planet is any round object in space smaller than star.
The key point that Stern and his colleagues hope to get approved is that cosmic objects in the solar system no longer need to be orbiting around the sun to be classified a planet. People became excited about the prospect of more rocky, Earth-like planets in our galaxy which were similar to our planet in terms of mass and temperature. Stern and others feel this definition is seriously flawed.
Or course, Stern’s new definition isn’t great, either. In fact, an object as big as the Earth wouldn’t count as a planet if it happened to be in the Kuiper Belt. The said event will be attended by astronomers and planetary experts from different parts of the world.
Our solar system may soon boast of close to a hundred “planets”.
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By that definition, the proposal notes, Earth’s moon would also fit the definition of a planet.
