NASA boss wants Pluto’s planethood restored
( NewsNation ) — NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman is here for Pluto, the onetime planet that was demoted to “dwarf planet” status in 2006.
“I am very much in the camp of ‘Make Pluto a planet again,’” Isaacman said earlier this week during a Senate Appropriations Committee hearing.
The NASA chief said his agency is conducting research that will hopefully convince the scientific community that Pluto is a full-blown planet and thus reaffirm astronomer Clyde Tombaugh’s 1930 discovery.
NASA prepares for next mission to the moon: Artemis III
Pluto , with a relatively petite diameter of 1,500 miles, nearly conforms to the International Astronomical Union’s definition of a planet by being round and by orbiting the Sun. Crucially, though, Pluto is unable to clear its orbit of debris, something known as “clearing the neighborhood.”
Pluto resides in the Kuiper Belt with other dwarf planets.
“Pluto lost its planet status when it failed to get big enough to be a planet back about 4 1/2 billion years ago,” CalTech Professor of Planetary Astronomy Michael E. Brown told the YouTube channel EarthSky in 2024. “We should never have called Pluto a planet to begin with.”
Brown says he has received negative reaction for his stance but adds, “I actually understand this emotional connection to what we think of as our neighborhood. … and if you suddenly take one of those things away.”
Copyright 2026 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to NewsNation.
