Pluto’s Dwarf Planet Status Through the Lenses of a 14-year old girl as Latest Images Surfaces From the New Horizons Spacecraft

Throughout history, people have grown up amidst conflicts and debates about who was right such as the Civil War and War of the Roses. However, 14-year old E. Dawn Redd (daughter of Nola Redd – a contributor at Space.com) witnessed a different kind of battle as she grew up - Pluto’s status as a planet.

Like all children who have grown up in the 2000s, Dawn Redd also faced the tricky question of whether Pluto is a planet or not. Most of the science and astronomy books and materials in school considered Pluto as a planet before researchers at NASA debated and established that Pluto is in-fact a dwarf-planet only.

People claiming that Pluto is indeed a ‘full’ planet usually present that Pluto orbits the sun and has its own satellites and has a significant mass as arguements. However that raises the question: should all objects that revolve around the sun and has a certain amount of mass be categorized as a ‘planet’? Well NASA scientists opted to disagree. They claimed that Pluto fits the status of a ‘dwarf-planet’ more accurately. Even though Pluto is a significant member of our solar system, it isn’t big enough to clear its orbit of other smaller objects and is right on the edge of the Kuiper Belt. Pluto like Ceres (another celestial body that initially had the tag of ‘planet’ later got demoted to a dwarf-planet status) should be branded as a dwarf-planet once for all.

As latest images of Pluto surfaces from NASA’s New Horizon spacecraft which left earth exactly nine and a half years ago from today for its three billion journey, the debate whether it is actually a full-fledged planet or not is expected to resume.

Thanks to New Horizon’s close-up shots of Pluto, scientists can now estimate that some of the vast empty plains on the dwarf-planet is only a 100 million years old. More than 10,000 feet high mountain ranges are being spotted on Pluto which was an impossible dream just 60-70 years back. In those days, Pluto appeared just as a blur in the telescope.

As New Horizons does its fly-by of Pluto, more significant images are expected to surface which should help to uncover the many mysteries of the most controversial celestial body in our solar system.