Planetary Awareness
I’m Finally Over Pluto Not Being A Planet
Letting go of big assumptions for Dwarf Planets.
My whole life, I had Pluto’s back. He was one of us. One of our tribe, that is in this solar system. Pluto was the little planet that could. But a planet nonetheless.
Well, my opinion has finally changed. That’s what you’re supposed to do when you get new facts. I was hit with some truth, when I found out Pluto is in the Kuiper Belt.
People, well astronomers and scientists, called Pluto a ‘Dwarf Planet’ and that Dwarf Planets won’t be counted as full-sized planets. They’re the mini-size candy bar you get in your bag on Halloween, not the big-sized ones, which are more rare to get and the ones you brag to your friends about.
Even when they called Pluto a dwarf, I, alongside many others fought to keep Pluto in the club with all of us. We grew up together. Pluto was in our DNA as a Solar System body. So we didn’t care if he was half the size. Size truly doesn’t matter.
But like talking to a woman about size, it all lead to disappointment. You can’t fight the truth. Pluto is practically just an asteroid, in the second asteroid belt in our system.
When did I learn this? Today.
Yes, it may have just happened today. So what? Yes, the information has been all over the internet. But it wasn’t laid out like I needed it to, to have a breakthrough. I needed to have the visualization.
I saw videos, or illustrations, of the asteroid belt, between Mars and Jupiter. We all know about that belt. I had heard of the Kuiper Belt, but didn’t realize that was Pluto’s gang. That’s where Pluto lives, in the second asteroid belt. He’s just one of the Kuiper Belt’s boys. A floating rock.
Dwarf Planets are the AAA of planets. They’re in the minor league. There’s many of these right here in our solar system. They have names too. Charon, Ceres, MakeMake. MakeMake! I’m not making that up. Nothing too grand with these dwarf planets. Nothing memorable. And I see that’s where Pluto belongs now.
But let’s be real. There’s a lot of Dwarf Planets in this system, and we don’t talk about any of them. They never got their moment.
Pluto got called up to the majors for a bit, but he got sent back down. He got to go to The Show. He at least had that. We got to see it. We’re glad he got to shine, if even for just a little bit.
We loved seeing the heart-shaped surface on the newer images of Pluto. It was breaking our hearts that he wasn’t classified as a large planet. But a heart on a smaller planet is still a heart. He’ll still be with us no matter what. Our hearts will go on.
Learning Pluto is just some glorified asteroid — in a second asteroid belt in our system is now a fact. He’ll always be a great friend in the neighborhood. I’ll always love him, no matter who he is.
