New Horizons photographed the Heart of Pluto, probably telling us something. It misses being classified a planet again. When you see it, you gotta say "aww, we just gotta reclassify it now." I, for one, disagreed with its declassification in the first place. Maybe finding this 'heart' will make whoever declassified it, rethink what they did. But that's just grasping at straws. That probably won't happen.

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Heh. lol

Yeah whoever classified it as a dwarf planet might have a different POV now.

But what about that 12th planet? (planet x / nibiru)

EDIT: just ranting about NASA. Pluto is a big step for man and giant step for mankind.

LordGaldan : My heart agrees with you. Most of my life, Pluto was a planet. I always dreamed of it and thought of it as special since there were never any plans to visit it when I was growing up and the only images were the extremely grainy photos. You could barely even tell it had a moon, it just looked like a little bump on the planet. Realistically though, it never should have been called a planet in the first place. It doesn't orbit in the plane or the solar system and hasn't cleared its orbit of other large bodies. A trait all the other planets possess. Scientists are so picky sometimes.

Until the astronomers met to decide what a planet was, we pretty much assumed that "large" celestial bodies are planet. Unless they refine their definition, then Pluto is destined to remain a dwarf planet. We would probably need to land of the planet and explore it to see if it is a "planet"

What about the 723 billion and something dollars that was spent on this trip to Pluto.

Kinda a lot of money there... for pictures that not many care about.

Poor Pluto, probably wishing it could go back to it's glory days. I always liked the planet because it maked me think of the cartoon dog Pluto, which I watched a lot when I was younger lol.

I remember learning about the solar system as a kid and about the 9 planets (this was back when Pluto was still considered a planet of course). I always wondered what all those planets looked like up close. I'm glad that we all now have a better understanding of what Pluto looks like now, even though it's not considered a planet anymore. I kinda wish Pluto would be reclassified as a planet again. That's probably not going to happen though...

I still consider Pluto a planet.

I don't consider Chairon a planet.

Ever since the discovery of Charon, Pluto was never the same. A planet that shared it's orbit with another, smaller object? 

Then, years after, more objects with similar characteristics started to be discovered around Pluto, most prominently Eris, considered by a brief time the 10th planet. It was then that the clear difference between Pluto and the rest of the planets led to another classification.

Coming to think about it, Pluto, Eris and many other planetoids discovered are different than the actually called planets. Not only are they small, even smaller than a few satellites present in other planet's orbit, but they haven't "cleared the neighborhood".

What is "clearing the neighborhood"? Becoming gravitationally dominant, so no other object is in its orbit. Satellites have their own orbit, but Charon and Pluto have a shared orbit, which means Pluto hasn't really "cleared its neighborhood", contrary to what all the other planets have done, with Venus and Mercury having no natural satellite's at all, thus having a clear orbit.

Pluto is located in an asteroid belt, where many objects lie. True, Pluto is the biggest of them all, but that doesn't automatically classify it as a planet. It hasn't become a gravitationally dominant object between the surrounding "debris", so scientists thought it didn't deserve to be called planet.

Personally, I would like Pluto to be back as a planet. However, over the years, I've come to realise it's impossible, by its own characteristics. We need to clear the definition and classification of celestial objects in our own solar system before thinking on moving ahead to other planetary systems, now that discovering exoplanets is at its peak of activity.

janus : Landing on it will have no effect on determine if something meets the qualifications of a planet. Pluto is not considered a planet because it does not meet the third qualification, which is to have either cleared all other objects out of its orbit or cause the other bodies to orbit it. Since there are other celestial bodies that share it's orbit, it is not a planet. It has nothing to do with exploring it to see .

The main reason whey the term dwarf planet was created was because of the other dwarf planets like Pluto that were discovered. If Pluto is considered a planet, then our solar system actually has at least 13 planets, not 9. The consensus was that since Pluto and the other 4 planets in within the Oort cloud lacked a characteristic that the other 8 planets had, it would be more efficient to narrow down the definition of planet, narrowing our solar system to 8, rather than going to 13.

After what I have learned in school, Pluto is still a planet, not one idiot from NASA said that it's not a planet. Anyways, sure, I know there is some space junk out there, and that is what confuses scientists, thinking that Pluto is a planet, but in reality, it's just a piece of space junk.

When NASA launched their spacecraft to Pluto, that was before they decided to say "screw Pluto, it's not a planet", but they realized that they spent nearly a trillion dollars on a pointless mission (money well spent), but figure might as well not let that money (when that money could of went to better things than looking at a big ball of ice a million miles away, come to my house, I got a cup of ice, there, save you time and money).

But all seriousness, I don't really care about Pluto becoming a planet again or not, it's not like anyone is going to visit Pluto anytime soon, we are starting to attempt to send people to Mars, so it might be like a thousand years till people start to travel to Pluto, and Pluto is like -230 C (-382 F), and that is a little too cold for me.

Aw, the poor thing, look at it. 

Unfortunately, like a cat who wants to be a lion, Pluto simply IS a dwarf planet by scientific definition; but that won't stop it from having the spirit of a planet... silly goose.

Pluto has a heart on it!? Dwaaaaaaaaaaaaah

Seriously though man, it's just 13 plernerts, we shouldn't classify some planets as "too lame to even care about". By that definition, "why care about any planet than ours? Not like anything lives there." THAT is short minded thinking. And have you SEEN Haumea!? It's a flippin football! Who wouldn't love it!?

The true Death Egg