After NASA’s flyby of Pluto took place, the astronomical community went absolutely bonkers about the achievement and new arguments were thusly created. It is an unbelievable accomplishment that mankind was able to create a spacecraft that could travel three billion miles over nine years, reach its destination, and transmit back evidence that provides new insight on to what Pluto actually looks like and contains. This incredible discovery led to the finding that Pluto contains mountains that reach nearly 11,000 feet, the surface is covered in methane ice, and contains many regions that were previously unknown to scientific knowledge. Due to this discovery, an uproar arose demanding that Pluto be reclassified as a planet. This statement is preposterous because according to the guidelines set by the IAU on planetary qualifications, geophysical qualities are not considered at all. To rename Pluto a planet would create a huge problem for the IAU based on the qualifications they set simply banning Pluto from being a planet in the first place.

Jamie Wisniewski, a writer for ECN magazine, states that allowing Pluto to become a planet again based on its “geophysical properties” would be a pitfall for the scientific community. If Pluto is renamed a planet due to its properties, then that would add cause for many more floating celestial bodies that share Pluto’s likeness, mass, and location to be considered planets as well.

BBC news writer Paul Rincon brought up the point that there was a time when the planet count in our solar system could increase from nine to twelve, because of Pluto’s characteristics. Eris and Ceres which are very similar in size and mass to Pluto would be named planets along with Pluto because of their shared characteristics, along with Charon, Pluto’s moon, which would be labeled a twin planet along with Pluto. Instead of increasing our planet count to twelve, the IAU decided in 2006 to name Pluto a dwarf planet, removing it from the exclusive list and making the list shortened to eight. This was established by the IAU’s guideline that a planet must “clear its neighborhood”, and allowing the four of these bodies to enter planetary status would be an abomination to astronomical theory of what a planet should be. Due to this establishment, Pluto and the others were disallowed from planetary contention.

Fraser Cain of universetoday.com made a very bold prediction in the article he wrote on Pluto before the New Horizons spacecraft arrived at Pluto to take its surveillance of the dwarf planet. “Space enthusiasts will marvel at the beauty and remoteness of Pluto, and the painful deplaneting memories will fade.” It is incredible how false this prediction was now that the demands for Pluto’s reinstatement as a planet have reached a new high due to the photos taken and discoveries made. At the time it was a perfectly plausible statement, but only because there had been such a lack of new evidence about Pluto that could reignite the flame that was its planetary status.

Works Cited

Pluto Should Not Be Renamed A Planet Wisniewski, Jamie. “Pluto Shouldn’t Be Renamed a Planet Just Because of Nasa’s Flyby.” Electronic Component News. N.p., 17 July 2015. Web. 09 Dec. 2015.

Why Is Pluto No Longer A Planet? Rincon, Paul. “Why Is Pluto No Longer a Planet?”BBC News. N.p., 13 July 2015. Web. 09 Dec. 2015.

Why Pluto Is No Longer A Planet Cain, Fraser. “Why Pluto Is No Longer a Planet.”Universe Today. N.p., 05 Jan. 2012. Web. 09 Dec. 2015.