NASA responds to six-year-old girl

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The American space agency NASA has written back to a six-year-old girl after she petitioned the agency to bring back Pluto which used to be one of the nine planets in the solar system.

In her letter, the six-year-old Irish girl, Cara 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.”

To persuade NASA, Cara also scientifically talked about why she insisted that Pluto should be among planets and recounted the reclassification of Pluto to a dwarf planet.

Courtesy of Cara's school, Glasheen Girls School

“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,” The Washington Post cited Cara as saying.

After having watched a video in which Pluto was thrown away to a trash can, Cara wrote: “This was really mean because no planet, including dwarf planets, should be put in the trash can.”

The six-year-old does hope that NASA could help her to make Pluto great again and has never expected any reply from the agency. However, she received a response from NASA’s Southwest Research Institute.

Pluto /VCG Photo

Dr. Carly Howett, a senior scientist, applauded the girl for her interest in space and explained divergent views on the planet. Also, Dr. Howett passed this letter to NASA Planetary Science Division, according to The Irish Times.

Director of the division, Dr. Jim Green also wrote her back and explained Pluto is a fascinating world that appears to be constantly changing and people still need to study it. At the same time, Dr. Green encouraged Cara to discover a new planet and hope to see her at NASA.

In 2006, the International Astronomical Union downgraded Pluto from a planet to a dwarf planet and determined that the downgraded Pluto did not exercise sufficient gravitational heft in its corner of the sky to continue to be the ninth planet.