Hello Readers,

When I was growing up, our solar system was made of 9 planets, owing to the discovery of Pluto – our ninth planet by Clyde Tombaugh on 18th February 1930. Then suddenly in 2006, scientists decided that Pluto no longer deserves to be a planet and demoted it to a ‘dwarf status’.

Do you want to know what happened?

There are 3 parameters to meet to get into the planet club:

·      to be in an orbit around the Sun.

·      to have sufficient mass and exert self-gravity to maintain its ellipsoid shape.

·      to have a clear orbit which means it does not share its orbit with any other celestial body.

As it turns out, Pluto met the first two criteria but did not have a clear orbit. From 2000 to 2005, a lot of other planets were discovered in the Kuiper Belt Orbit of which Pluto is a part of. Their discovery strengthened the decision to demote Pluto to the status of a dwarf planet.

But planet or dwarf planet, Pluto is a part of our solar system and it is its birthday today. Let us all celebrate it by reading more about it. You can also bring out your telescopes and have a go at our amazing universe.

Happy Birthday Pluto!