On the anniversary of Pluto’s reclassification as a dwarf planet, NASA administrator Jim Bridenstine hits back at the International Astronomical Union’s (IAU) ruling on the classification of planets. For him, Pluto will always be a planet.

In August 2006, the IAU attracted the attention of the public and the scientific community after it released a new definition for the term “planet.” According to the organization, objects in the Solar System must meet three conditions in order to be officially classified as a planet.

In order to be considered a planet, an object should orbit the Sun, it should be massive enough to be shaped by its own galaxy and it should be bigger than the other cosmic objects along its path.

Unfortunately, Pluto failed to meet the third condition, prompting the IAU to reclassify it as a dwarf planet. The ruling caused mostly negative reactions especially since its reclassification affected generations of people’s knowledge regarding the status of Pluto.

As it turns out, Bridenstine is one of the people who was greatly affected by Pluto’s status downgrade. Recently, during a tour of the Aerospace Engineer Sciences Building at the University of Colorado, the NASA administrator declared that Pluto is still a planet in his point of view, at least.

“Just so you know, in my view, Pluto is a planet,” he said, according to Science Alert. “You can write that the NASA administrator declared Pluto a planet once again. I’m sticking by that, it’s the way I learnt it, and I’m committed to it.”

Although the head of NASA views Pluto as a planet, this will most likely not change the IAU’s ruling. Despite this, Bridenstine isn’t the only NASA official who is against the IAU’s decision to reclassify Pluto.

Alan Stern, a planetary scientist and head of NASA’s New Horizon mission, once blasted the IAU for its decision to demote Pluto from a planet to a dwarf planet.

“My conclusion is that the IAU definition is not only unworkable and unteachable, but so scientifically flawed and intentionally contradictory that it cannot be strongly defended against claims of scientific sloppiness, ‘ir-rigor,’ and cogent classification,” Stern previously stated.

Pluto
Study showed Pluto was incorrectly classified as dwarf planet. Pictured, a true color view of Pluto created from four images taken by NASA's New Horizons' Long Range Reconnaissance Imager. NASA/Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory/Southwest Research Institute
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