AlanStern
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New Horizons scientists want to redefine what planets are
Alan Stern and his fellow New Horizons scientists really want Pluto to become a full-fledged planet again. The principal investigator of NASA's mission to Pluto, along with a few members of his team, want to change the definition of planets. According to the proposal they intend to present at the Lunar and Planetary Science Conference, they want the word "planet" to define any "sub-stellar mass body that has never undergone nuclear fusion and that has sufficient self-gravitation to assume a spheroidal shape adequately described by a triaxial ellipsoid regardless of its orbital parameters." In simpler words, they want the word planet to describe all "round objects in space that are smaller than stars."
