Arizona – a south-western US state – has recently declared Pluto as its ‘official state planet’, while the ‘dwarf planet’ was stripped of its official status as a planet by the International Astronomical Union in 2006.
Last Friday (i.e. March 29), Arizona Governor Katie Hobbs signed a law declaring the ‘dwarf planet’ as the ‘official state planet’ of the US state, reports The Arizona Daily Star. When he was asked whether Pluto is a perfect planet? The Arizona governor dodged the question, saying, “I’m proud of Arizona’s pioneering work in space exploration.”
It is important to note that Pluto was discovered by American astronomer Clyde Tombaugh in 1930 at the Lowell Observatory in Flagstaff, Arizona. Pluto is the only planet discovered in the Americas.
Arizona state Republican Justin Wilmeth (R-Phoenix) praised the Pluto Law, saying, “Clyde’s whole story is absolutely amazing, he was sitting under a telescope taking pictures for a while and looking for planets.”
Senator Sally Ann Gonzales (D-Tucson) – one of five senators to vote against the legislation – said, “Scientifically, they made it out of a planet.” Gonzales said lawmakers must take scientific information into account, “something that we as a legislature, as a body, sometimes omit.”
What is the position of Pluto?
In 2006, the International Astronomical Union (IAU) voted to remove Pluto from the group of planets, claiming that the icy object at the edge of the Solar System failed to meet the full and proper definition of planet. The IAU reclassified Pluto as a “dwarf planet”.
According to NASA, “Pluto is a dwarf planet located in the far region of our solar system beyond Neptune known as the Kuiper Belt. It was long considered our ninth planet, but the International Astronomical Union reclassified Pluto as a dwarf planet in 2006.”
“It was named by 11-year-old Venetia Burney of Oxford, England,” the US space agency said.
According to the Encyclopædia Britannica, Pluto is classified as a dwarf planet because, “although it is large enough to be spheroidal, it is not large enough to exert its orbital dominance and the surrounding area around its orbit.” Can clean up the neighborhood.”
The website noted that Pluto’s “destruction” felt like a “break with tradition” to many people around the world. It added, however, that the move was “a positive step toward new light, new knowledge, and a changing view of the universe.”
NASA added, “When Pluto was reclassified from a planet to a dwarf planet in 2006, there was widespread outcry on behalf of the demoted planet. As the textbooks were updated, the Internet showed Pluto going through a variety of emotions from anger to loneliness. But since the release of New Horizons images showing a very prominent heart-shaped feature on the surface, the sad Pluto meme has given way to a very content, love-filled Pluto that is once again visited by a spacecraft. Would like to do.
“The Disney cartoon character Pluto, Mickey’s faithful dog, made his debut in 1930, the same year the dwarf planet was discovered by Clyde Tombaugh, an astronomer at the Lowell Observatory in Flagstaff, Arizona. There is speculation that Walt Disney named the animated dog after the recently discovered planet to capitalize on its popularity, but other accounts are less certain about the direct link,” the US space agency said.
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Published: 01 April 2024, 03:11 PM IST
