NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman has reiterated his support for restoring Pluto to planet status.Speaking during a US Senate hearing on Tuesday, Isaacman expressed strong support for reconsidering Pluto’s classification.Responding to a question from Senator Jerry Moran, chairman of the Senate Committee on Appropriations, Isakman said, “Senator, I am in favor of ‘making Pluto a planet again.’He also indicated that NASA researchers are working on studies that could help reopen the scientific debate over Pluto’s status, USA Today reports. Isaacman said he firmly believes that the distant icy world should not be reclassified as a dwarf planet.His comments come nearly two decades after Pluto was stripped of its planet status in a 2006 decision by the International Astronomical Union (IAU).Isaacman, who was confirmed as NASA Administrator in December 2025, has expressed similar views before, including in media interviews where he suggested that Pluto’s classification deserves fresh scrutiny.
Why was Pluto’s status reduced?
Pluto was discovered by American astronomer Clyde Tombaugh in 1930 and was long considered the ninth planet in the Solar System.However, in 2006, the IAU redefined qualification as a planet. While Pluto meets some of the criteria, such as orbiting the Sun and being spherical in shape, it does not meet the requirement to ‘clear its orbit’ of other debris.Because of this, Pluto was reclassified as a ‘dwarf planet’, a designation that placed it in a separate category with other icy bodies in the Kuiper Belt beyond Neptune.Pluto is a small, frozen world about 1,400 miles wide, located at the edge of the Solar System. It is part of the Kuiper Belt, a region filled with icy objects and remnants of the early Solar System.NASA’s New Horizons spacecraft remains the only mission to fly past Pluto, completing a historic flyby in 2015 and providing the first close-up images of its surface and moons.
Ongoing debate on definition of planets
The question of Pluto’s status has remained a matter of scientific and public debate since its reclassification.Some planetary scientists, including Alan Stern, head of the New Horizons mission, argue that Pluto should still be considered a planet based on its geology and atmosphere, not just orbital criteria.Public figures have also joined the discussion, with supporters calling for a broader definition of what constitutes a planet.Pluto was identified after years of discovery efforts following the predictions of astronomer Percival Lowell, who theorized the existence of a distant ‘Planet X’ based on irregularities in the orbit of Uranus.Clyde Tombaugh finally discovered Pluto in 1930 at Lowell Observatory in Arizona.The name ‘Pluto’ was suggested by 11-year-old Venetia Burney of England, inspired by the Roman god of the underworld, and later adopted by astronomers.Despite new calls from NASA leadership and supporters, Pluto’s classification remains unchanged under current International Astronomical Union rules.Any official reclassification would require a revision of the scientific definition of a planet, a step that will continue to face debate within the global astronomy community.
