The reason behind Pluto lost its planet status is not valid and scientists argued challenging about past held theories. A team led by Philip Metzger, a planetary scientist at the University of Central Florida in Orlando, identified that the basis on which Pluto was completely rejected as a planet has no support in the research literature.
The International Astronomical Union — a global group of astronomy experts — well-established that to be termed a planet, it is needed to “clear” its orbit. As per the definition, Pluto does not satisfy the criteria, since Neptune’s gravity influences it, and Pluto contributes its orbit with frozen gases as well as objects in the Kuiper belt.“The IAU definition would describe that the fundamental object of planetary science, the planet, is expected to be defined on the basis of a concept that nobody values in their research,” Metzger said.
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Reviewing scientific literature from the previous 200 years, Metzger found only one publication, from 1802, that followed the clearing-orbit requirement to classify planets, and it was based on the strategy of since-disproven reasoning. According to co-author Kirby Runyon, from Johns Hopkins University, the IAU’s definition was flawed since the literature review said that clearing orbit is not a standard that is used for differentiating asteroids from planets, as the IAU declared when crafting the 2006 definition of planets.
