Dear Pluto has been put through lot of harassment since the time when I was a kid. Back then, we counted it as just another planet. Sure, it was smaller and farther out than the others, and named after the Roman god for the Underworld, but it was also the name of a favorite Disney character.
The story of its demotion happened in Prague, Czech Republic in August of 2006. I will always remember it as I was invited to attend the conference and cast my vote. I had to turn down the invitation, however, as I was due to give birth that same week!
Yes, my daughter was born into a world that no longer accepted Pluto into the planetary club. At the time of its demotion Pluto was also a planet that just always seemed so, unreachable and well, dare I say a bit boring. Just last year astronomers and the public alike were surprised to find sweeping new images of Pluto’s surface using the New Horizons spacecraft.
Instead of that vague gray color that we imagined as kids, these new images showed that Pluto has dramatic landscapes with mountains, valleys and striking ridges. Moreover just this past week we have learned from scientists presenting at the American Astronomical Society’s Division for Planetary Sciences that Pluto may also have clouds.
Recall that Pluto does show haze. Hazes are tenuous and wispy features which importantly do not reflect sunlight. To be fair the clouds were tenuously detected, appearing only to form around Pluto’s dawn or dusk. Still, doesn’t it seem now like a more accessible dwarf planet that it is?
