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Pluto

Should the Dwarf Planet Regain Planetary Status?

By Andi CamillePublished 4 years ago 4 min read
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Pluto curtesy of sciencenews.com

Welcome to Hyper fixations with Andi Camille. In today’s story we are going to talk about Pluto and its loss of planetary status, but first! I want to tell y'all a little bit about me!

My name is Andi Camille and I am currently a university student pursuing a degree in English Education. I am a nonbinary femme who uses they/them pronouns. This means that I identify with the experience of womanhood but don't really identify with being a woman completely.

This is a judgement free and positivity filled space where you will learn cool new things with every story.

So let's get into things!

I'll start off with a question. How many stars are in our Solar System? If you know, great! If not I'll answer that at the end of this story.

Alrighty, Pluto! Pluto was at one point considered that 9th planet in our solar system. It was discovered February 18th 1930 by Clyde Tombaugh, an American Astronomer. Just like the other planets, Pluto was named after a mythical Roman Deity. Pluto is the leader of the underworld and so it just so happens that he is my favorite of all the roman gods. Fun Fact: it was actual an 11 year old English girl who suggested it to her grandfather who then passed it to the observatory.

On my 5th birthday, I remember watching the live NASA press conference where they revoked Plutos Planetary status. My dad told me that I was sooooo upset about it. I even did a mini speech on it at my preschool graduation. For some reason, little ole me connected so perfectly with the little ole dwarf planet. For so long, there were nine planets in the solar system and my big sister taught me a little phrase to remember them all. It went like this; My Very Eager Mother Just Sent Us Nine Pizzas. Mercury, Venus, Earth, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune, and Pluto. Everything seemed so simple then.

And then I forgot about it for 5 years.

Many years later, my parents took my siblings and I to Barnes and Noble to get workbooks and other fun stuff. I remember getting this really cool book called Webster’s Children's Atlas of the Universe. It was a big book about the size of a seven year old and I loved every page. It was a super fun book about the universe; from this planet to neighboring galaxies. I must've read it everyday for a year straight.

I never lost the same fire for Pluto that I first felt back in 2006. As it turns out, there is actually a debate going on right now within the scientific community about Pluto’s planetary status.

According to space.com and cool cosmos, Pluto is 1,473 miles wide making it 1/6th the size of earth and smaller than earth’s moon. Pluto’s moons must be really tiny lol. Its largest moon, Charon, is a little less than half the size of Dwarf planet. If we were able to stuff the sun with Pluto, it would take 200 million.

Many people cite Pluto's comparatively tiny state as the reason why it should never me reinstated as a planet.

NASA’s press conference stated that in order for a celestial body to be considered a planet it has to meet 4 requirements.

1. It must orbit the sun

2. It has to have a mass big enough to maintain a spherical shape

3. It must “clear the neighborhood” around its orbit

4. It cannot be a moon.

Because of reason number 3, Pluto was stripped of his planetary status. And I’ve noticed that people my age and older tend to be very upset about the demotion. I honestly think that we all take it personally. And has anything ever felt real since then? I always felt defensive because Shouldn’t Neptune be demoted as well? I mean they technically share an orbit.

Among scientists, Pluto is a hotly debated topic and a group has tried change the definition of a planet. However, this doesn’t just add Pluto to the list of planets on our solar system but 100 other celestial beings. I’m not sure how to feel about that but I know that Space is so vast and wonderful.

Pluto should Planetary status because categorizing and micro-categorizing something so beautiful is unnecessary. The other dwarf planets in our solar system don't meet 2 or more of the requirements. It seems like some people just wanted to find a reason to demote Pluto and so they framed their requirements around that. But what's done is done. I can only hope that the New Horizons space project can find a reason to reinstate Pluto soon.

Space is a graceful and ever growing beast. As long we we keep exploring and learning more this, and future generations will be able to reap the benefits so many many years.

So, how many stars are in our solar system? Just one! Our sun is the solar of this solar system. It was kind of a trick question but an important one nevertheless.

(this story is the companion of my podcast Hyper Fixations with Andi Camille. Found on Spotify and Anker)

astronomy
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About the Creator

Andi Camille

Welcome to the mind of 10 year old Andi!

My stories will be lessons on things that I was inthralled by as a child. Bugs, stars, and tornados. Oh My!

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