NASA administrator says Pluto should once again be called a planet

NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman has weighed in on a 20-year-old space debate and said Pluto should be considered a planet again.

In a hearing of the Senate subcommittee on Commerce, Justice, Science, and Related Agencies, Mr. Isaacman said Tuesday, “I am very much in the camp of ’make Pluto a planet again.’”

The International Astronomical Union, which defines celestial objects and bodies and decides their official names, declared in 2006 that Pluto was not a true planet but was instead a dwarf planet.

Mr. Isaacman’s remark was prompted by Sen. Jerry Moran, Kansas Republican, mentioning the astronomer who discovered Pluto in 1930, Clyde Tombaugh. Tombaugh hailed from Burdett, Kansas, about 274 miles southwest of Kansas City.

Mr. Moran said he had represented Burdett since his days in the Kansas State Senate, and asked Mr. Isaacman to talk about NASA’s interest in Pluto.

Circling back to the discoverer of Pluto, Mr. Isaacman added that NASA is “doing some papers right now on a position that we would like to escalate through the scientific community to revisit this discussion and ensure that Clyde Tombaugh gets the credit he received once and rightfully deserves to receive again.”

The International Astronomical Union decided Pluto was not a planet because its gravity was not strong enough to clear out similarly sized celestial objects in its orbit around the Sun.

Mr. Isaacman did not specify in the hearing what arguments NASA would make to try and get the International Astronomical Union to reverse its ruling.