(ringing) - Hi Doug. - Hi Nayeli. - I have a question for you. Is Pluto a planet? - Ooh, that's an interesting question. When I was growing up, we always learned that there were nine
planets in our solar system, with tiny little Pluto being
the smallest and farthest away, way, way out at the far
end of our solar system. But then, the scientists
who study space and planets, the people called astronomers, started saying that they thought Pluto should be removed
from the list of planets. That means kids in school would no longer learn the nine planets, instead they'd learn the eight planets. Lots of people were
confused by this decision, even upset about it, specially adults who grew
up learning about Pluto. How could scientists want to remove Pluto from the list of planets? Scientists definitely had
some reasons for doing this. I'll say more about that
near the end of this video. But before you consider any of that, it might be interesting for you to know why people seem to care
so much about tiny Pluto. The thing to realize about Pluto is that Pluto was one of the most mysterious and most difficult planets for
us to learn anything about, starting all the way back
when it was first discovered in the year 1930. You see, all the other
planets, through a telescope, you can actually see what they look like. Not Pluto. Pluto's so tiny, so far away, that through a telescope
it just looks like this. The smallest little dot of light. Because we can barely see Pluto, we immediately had all
these questions about it. What does Pluto look like up close? Does it have rings like
some of the other planets? Does it have any moons? At the time, nobody knew. We could guess that being
so far from the Sun, Pluto must be extremely cold. Maybe the coldest place
in the solar system. And from watching it through a telescope, we also knew that Pluto
moves really slowly in its pathway around the Sun. For Pluto to complete just
one trip around the Sun takes 248 years. That means, if you lived on Pluto, your birthday would only
happen once ever 248 years. But beyond that, we didn't
know a whole lot more about this tiny planet. I can remember when I was
growing up in the 1990s, scientists had developed the most powerful telescope in the world, the Hubble Space Telescope. And they pointed it at Pluto. This was what they saw. It was exciting to finally get some clue about what Pluto might look like. You can notice, are those maybe some dark and
light markings here and there? But let's be honest, this
picture doesn't look much better than a blurry picture of a disco ball. But all of this changed in the year 2006. That's when scientists at NASA launched the New Horizons spacecraft. It was carrying a remote-control camera that would be the first ever to travel all the way to Pluto. To get there, the spacecraft
had to fly at speeds of nearly 36,000 miles an hour, and it had to go that fast
for almost ten years nonstop. But finally, in the summer
of 2015, it arrived at Pluto. That was the moment when
we finally got to see the first ever close-up pictures of this mysterious little world. We found out that Pluto's surface is covered with dark markings,
craters, and mountains, along with big smooth areas
of light orange-colored ice. One of these smooth areas quickly became nicknamed The Heart. Some people even had fun imagining the Disney character Pluto in its outline. So now, hopefully you have a sense of why some people are
upset about the idea of Pluto being removed
from the list of planets. Pluto feels like a part
of our family of planets. Should we consider it a planet or not? Before I say anything more, why do you think some
scientists are saying Pluto shouldn't be considered a planet? What do you think? Now would be a good time to
pause the video and discuss. Okay, you're ready? The short answer is, Pluto is a planet. It's just what's called a minor planet, one of the many smaller rocky
objects in our solar system. It may not be a major planet like Jupiter or Earth or Saturn, but that doesn't mean we
can't talk about Pluto or be interested in it. Now, if you're wondering, why don't we consider Pluto
one of the major planets? There's a great story I
can tell you about that, but it's a story for another day. I'm working on a video
about that right now and I'll be sure to share
it on mysterydoug.com when it's ready. That's all for this week's question. Thanks Nayeli for asking it. Now, for the next episode I
reached into my question jar and picked out three
questions submitted to me that I'm thinking about answering. When this video's done playing,
you'll get to vote on one. You get to choose from: Why do zippers make noise? Do any flowers grow during the winter? Or, how is plastic made? So submit your vote when the video's over. I wanna hear from all of you watching. There are mysteries all around us. Stay curious, and see you next week.
