Science Museum Downgrades Pluto From Planet to Comet

A leading science museum has quietly shaken up the universe by suggesting that Pluto is not necessarily a planet but may be just a lump of ice.

The suggestion comes from scientists at the Rose Center for Earth and Space, which opened last year at the American Museum of Natural History in New York.

There is a model of Jupiter hanging from the ceiling at the center. There are Saturn with its rings, Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Neptune and Uranus.

A solar system display says: “Beyond the outer planets is the Kuiper Belt of comets, a disk of small, icy worlds including Pluto.”

“There is no scientific insight to be gained by counting planets,” says Neil de Grasse Tyson, director of the Rose Center’s Hayden Planetarium.

Some astronomers say the museum has gone too far.

“Tyson is so far off base with Pluto, it’s like he’s in a different universe,” says David Levy, author of “Clyde Tombaugh, Discoverer of Planet Pluto,” about the Kansas farm boy who first spotted Pluto.

Still, others praise the museum for its bold move.

“People just don’t like the idea that you can change the number of planets,” says David Jewit, a professor at the University of Hawaii who co-discovered the first Kuiper Belt object. “The Rose Center is just slightly ahead of its time.”