NASA/JHUAPL/SwRI
Pluto hasn’t been a planet for nearly 20 years. Within the early 2000s, scientists found a number of objects of an analogous measurement to Pluto. So, in the course of the summer season of 2006, members of the Worldwide Astronomical Union convened in Prague to rethink what counts as a planet in our photo voltaic system. IAU members determined that there have been three standards to be a planet — and Pluto did meet all of them.
However planetary scientist Wladymir Lyra says that although it was downgraded to a dwarf planet, Pluto nonetheless has a lot to show us about planet formation. This episode, he additionally lays out his case for Pluto — and lots of different objects within the photo voltaic system — to be thought-about a planet.
This episode is a part of Brief Wave’s house camp sequence about all of the bizarre, great issues taking place within the universe. Try the full sequence.
Questions concerning the state of our universe or smaller happenings right here on planet Earth? Electronic mail us at shortwave@npr.org — we would love to contemplate it for a future episode!
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This episode was produced by Hannah Chinn. It was edited by Rebecca Ramirez. Regina G. Barber checked the details. The audio engineer was Gilly Moon.