A 10-year-old girl wrote to NASA asking them to 'restore Pluto to a planet,' and the NASA administrator replied that they would 'consider it.'


by NASA/Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory/Southwest Research Institute/Alex Parker

Pluto , once the ninth planet in our solar system, was reclassified as a 'dwarf planet' by the International Astronomical Union in 2006, removing it from the list of planets in our solar system. A 10-year-old girl living in Florida wrote to NASA asking them to reclassify Pluto as a planet, to which the NASA administrator responded on X, 'We are looking into this.'

NASA chief replies to 10-year-old's call to make Pluto a planet again | Mashable
https://mashable.com/article/nasa-administrator-isaacman-pluto-planet

Kayla Polkinghorn, a fourth-grader living in Tampa , a major city on Florida's west coast, visited the Museum of Science and Industry (MOSI), a museum and planetarium, on a school field trip to learn about the planets of the solar system. Her attention was drawn to Pluto, which seems to be the odd one out among the eight planets. 'It's so small and cute,' Kayla said, and she and her classmates gathered to write a letter asking for Pluto to be reinstated as a planet. Below is a photo of Kayla and her handwritten letter, provided to the media by her father, Brandy Polkinghorn. Kayla also requested that the media include the name of her friend, Zoe Mead, who helped her the most in writing the letter.



Kayla intended to mail the letter to NASA, but her mother, Brandy, found it and decided to show it to Mike Boylan, a Tampa-based weather forecaster and close family friend. Boylan has about 190,000 followers on his X account, so to reach a wider audience, he posted the contents of the letter to NASA on X, saying, 'My friend's 10-year-old Kayla has sent a letter to NASA. It's so cute I just had to post it.'



Hours after Tampa's post, Jared Isaacman , the 15th Administrator of NASA, responded on X, saying, 'Kayla, we are investigating this matter.'



According to a NASA spokesperson, Administrator Isaacman's reply was not just a joke for a child, but an actual instruction to reinstate Pluto as a planet. In fact, an article published in the British tabloid Daily Mail in March 2026 quoted Isaacman as explaining why Pluto should be reclassified as a planet as part of a 'plan to make NASA great again.'

The International Astronomical Union (IAU) decided to reclassify Pluto as a dwarf planet, and even if NASA wanted to reclassify Pluto as a planet, it couldn't overturn that decision on its own. However, according to a paper by Philip Metzger, a planetary physicist at the University of Central Florida, NASA's stance on Pluto is significant. Metzger explains the exchange between Kayla and Administrator Isaacman: 'Some scientists argue that Pluto should be counted as a planet, even though it lies in the same region as many other icy bodies, due to its complex surface and active geological activity. If calling Pluto a planet is scientifically beneficial to researchers, then it should be. NASA is in a position to contribute to spreading awareness that the IAU's definition was inadequate. Therefore, it could be very beneficial for the NASA administrator to address this issue.'

An IAU spokesperson confirmed that they had not been contacted by NASA or Administrator Isaacman regarding Pluto, and stated, 'We understand that the 2006 decision remains an emotional issue. Scientific classifications are determined by an international consensus and evidence-based process. They cannot be changed unilaterally, but they may be revised if the supporting evidence changes.'

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