‘Make Pluto a planet again’: NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman calls for Pluto’s restoration at US Senate hearing

NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman reiterated his support for restoring Pluto to planet status.Isaacman spoke at a U.S. Senate hearing on Tuesday and strongly supported reconsidering Pluto’s classification.“Senator, I’m very supportive of ‘Make Pluto a planet again,'” Isaacman said in response to a question from Sen. Jerry Moran, chairman of the Senate Appropriations Committee.He also said NASA researchers are conducting research to help reopen the scientific debate about Pluto’s status, USA Today reported. Isaacman said he firmly believes the distant, icy world should not be reclassified as a dwarf planet.Nearly two decades after his remarks, the International Astronomical Union (IAU) decided in 2006 to strip Pluto of its planet status.Isaacman, who is confirmed as NASA administrator in December 2025, has expressed similar views before, including in media interviews in which he suggested Pluto’s classification deserved reexamination.

Why was Pluto downgraded?

Pluto was discovered in 1930 by American astronomer Clyde Tombaugh and has long been considered the ninth planet in the solar system.However, in 2006, the International Astronomical Union redefined the definition of a planet. While Pluto meets some criteria, such as orbiting the sun and being spherical in shape, it doesn’t meet the requirement to “clear its orbit” of other debris.As a result, Pluto was reclassified as a “dwarf planet,” a designation that places it in a separate category along with other icy bodies in the Kuiper Belt beyond Neptune.Pluto is a small, icy world about 1,400 miles wide located at the edge of the solar system. It is part of the Kuiper Belt, a region filled with icy objects and remnants of the early solar system.NASA’s New Horizons spacecraft remains the only mission to fly by Pluto, completing a historic flyby in 2015 and providing the first close-up images of Pluto’s surface and moons.

The ongoing debate over the definition of a planet

Since Pluto’s reclassification, the question of its status has been a focus of scientific and public debate.Some planetary scientists, including New Horizons mission manager Alan Stern, believe Pluto should still be considered a planet based on its geology and atmosphere, not just orbital criteria.Public figures have also joined the discussion, with supporters calling for a broader definition of what constitutes a planet.Astronomer Percival Lowell proposed the theory of the existence of the distant “Planet X” based on the irregularities in Uranus’s orbit. After years of search efforts, Pluto was finally found.Pluto was finally discovered by Clyde Tombaugh in 1930 at the Lowell Observatory in Arizona.The name “Pluto” was suggested by 11-year-old British Venetia Burney, who was inspired by the Roman god of the underworld, and was later adopted by astronomers.Despite renewed calls from NASA leadership and supporters, Pluto’s classification remains unchanged under current International Astronomical Union rules.Any official reclassification would require revising the scientific definition of a planet, a move that still faces debate in the global astronomy community.