Overview
- NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman, testifying Tuesday to a Senate panel, said he supports making Pluto a planet again and that NASA is drafting papers to push the case through the scientific community.
- The International Astronomical Union sets the rules for planetary names and classes, so neither NASA nor the president can overrule Pluto’s designation by decree.
- Backers cite NASA’s New Horizons flyby in 2015, which revealed glaciers, mountains of water ice, a layered atmosphere, and signs of a subsurface ocean on Pluto.
- Many scientists still defend the 2006 rule that a planet must clear its orbit, noting Pluto resides in the Kuiper Belt, while others warn that reinstating it could add many similar worlds to the planet list.
- A formal reconsideration would likely come before the IAU in 2027, and NASA’s role for now is to fund research, publish analyses, and build consensus for any change.