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NASA chief insists Pluto is still a planet

Some fans of the demoted dwarf planet just can't let go.

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Abrar Al-Heeti Video producer / CNET
Abrar Al-Heeti is a video host and producer for CNET, with an interest in internet trends, entertainment, pop culture and digital accessibility. Before joining the video team, she was a writer for CNET's culture team. She graduated with bachelor's and master's degrees in journalism from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Though Illinois is home, she now loves San Francisco -- steep inclines and all.
Expertise Abrar has spent her career at CNET breaking down the latest trends on TikTok, Twitter and Instagram, while also reporting on diversity and inclusion initiatives in Hollywood and Silicon Valley. Credentials
  • Named a Tech Media Trailblazer by the Consumer Technology Association in 2019, a winner of SPJ NorCal's Excellence in Journalism Awards in 2022 and has twice been a finalist in the LA Press Club's National Arts & Entertainment Journalism Awards.
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Abrar Al-Heeti
New Horizons Nears July 14 Flyby Of Pluto

Pluto: forever a planet in our hearts.

 NASA / Getty Images

Fans of Pluto have had a hard time letting go of the fact that it's no longer a planet. Even though the cosmic body was demoted more than a decade ago, NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine apparently isn't ready to give up the fight.

"Just so you know, in my view, Pluto is a planet, and you can write that the NASA administrator declared Pluto a planet once again," Bridenstine said in a video posted to Twitter on Friday. "I'm sticking by that. "It's the way I learned it and I'm committed to it."

The International Astronomical Union stripped Pluto of its planetary status in 2006 because it's "smaller than our moon, not of planetary size." It was deemed a "dwarf planet" instead.

Efforts to restore Pluto's planetary status have been ongoing. Last year, University of Central Florida planetary scientist Philip Metzger argued in a study that Pluto qualifies for the title. He suggested planets should be classified based on being big enough that their gravity allows them to be spherical.

In 2017, NASA's New Horizons team, which guided the spacecraft in a close-up study of Pluto, proposed a new definition for planets that would allow Pluto to qualify. Some moons and other solar system objects would also be deemed planets.

For now, we can just reminisce about the good old days when Pluto held equal weight as the other eight "planets."

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