Six-year-old girl pens down heartfelt letter to NASA, asks to bring Pluto back as planet

A six-year old girl from Ireland, Cara O’Connor, whose dream is to become an astronaut, wrote a letter to the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) asking it to reclassify Pluto as a planet.

Pluto was downgraded from a planet to a dwarf planet in 2006 by the governing body of astronomy, the International Astronomical Union (IAU). This decision, apparently has not gone well with the six-year-old, and she wants NASA to ‘fix the problem’ and ‘make Pluto a planet again’.

She wrote, “I listened to a song and at the end of it the song said "Bring Pluto Back" -- and I would really like that to happen.” Cara also wrote about Kuiper belt, the doughnut-shaped ring beyond Neptune where many dwarf planets are located.

Cara wrote, “I really think Pluto should be a main planet again like Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus & Neptune, because in one video I watched called 'Let's go meet the planets,' Pluto was at the very end.” She said that in another video, Pluto was ‘put in trash cab and was scared by planet Earth’.

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Cara continued, “This was really mean, because no one or no planet or dwarf planets should be put in the trash can.”

Soon enough, James Green, Director of NASA’s Planetary Science Division, complimented on Cara’s interest in Pluto and wrote back, “I agree with you that Pluto is really cool — in fact, who would have believed that Pluto has a heart? ... It's a fascinating world that appears to be constantly changing. To me, it's not so much about whether Pluto is a dwarf planet or not; it's that Pluto is a fascinating place that we need to continue to study. I hope that you will discover a new planet, and I trust that if you continue to do well in school we will see you at NASA one of these days.”