Is Pluto still a planet?

Leading experts give their views on the controversial decision to downgrade Pluto to a dwarf planet in 2006

YES Dr William B McKinnon, professor at the Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences and McDonnell Center for the Space Sciences, Washington University in St Louis “ Pluto is a planet. But it is a small, ordwarf, planet. It is the exemplar of an entirely new class of planets, the other classes being the rocky terrestrial planets and the gas giants. All of the dwarf planets we know of so far are made of ice and rock, and most reside in the Kuiper belt, beyond Neptune. But the idea that dwarf planets are not planets is linguistically sloppy and a bit silly. Planetary scientists study bodies, not just masses and orbits, and a world with five moons, an atmosphere and hints of a complex history, is planet enough for most…

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