Question: when is Pluto goanna be a planet again

Elliot Jokl answered on 24 Jun 2016:

Thanks for the question!

Sadly, I think never! Essentially, what happened is that astronomers started to find more and more icy objects in the outer regions of our solar system that were a similar size to Pluto, or even bigger. These were called Kuiper Belt Objects and astronomers had to decide whether these new objects should count as planets. There was a meeting in 2006 where they had to make a decision: should all of these new objects be planets too, or should they change the definition of what a planet is to make it a bit more strict?

They decided to go with the second choice, and the new definition they chose meant that Pluto no longer met the criteria to be called a planet. It was demoted to be a “dwarf planet” instead.

I remember that this happened when I was in school, during my A-levels. Lots of people were very sad about it and it was quite big news. But maybe it is better to have one less planet than to have lots more to try and remember!