{"id":784267,"date":"2024-06-18T02:23:51","date_gmt":"2024-06-18T07:23:51","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/spaceweekly.com\/?p=784267"},"modified":"2024-06-18T02:23:51","modified_gmt":"2024-06-18T07:23:51","slug":"what-pluto-can-teach-us-about-planets-and-our-solar-system-short-wave-npr","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/spaceweekly.com\/?p=784267","title":{"rendered":"What Pluto can teach us about planets and our solar system : Short Wave : NPR"},"content":{"rendered":"


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\n NASA’s New Horizons spacecraft captured this high-resolution enhanced color view of Pluto on July 14, 2015. The image combines blue, red and infrared images taken by the Ralph\/Multispectral Visual Imaging Camera.
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NASA’s New Horizons spacecraft captured this high-resolution enhanced color view of Pluto on July 14, 2015. The image combines blue, red and infrared images taken by the Ralph\/Multispectral Visual Imaging Camera.<\/p>\n

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Pluto hasn’t been a planet for almost 20 years. In the early 2000s, scientists discovered several objects of a similar size to Pluto. So, during the summer of 2006, members of the International Astronomical Union convened in Prague to reconsider what counts as a planet in our solar system. IAU members decided that there were three criteria to be a planet \u2014 and Pluto did meet all of them.<\/p>\n

But planetary scientist Wladymir Lyra says that even though it was downgraded to a dwarf planet, Pluto still has much to teach us about planet formation. This episode, he also lays out his case for Pluto \u2014 and many other objects in the solar system \u2014 to be considered a planet.<\/p>\n