Pluto TV Rallies for Pluto to Regain Planetary Status (Yes, Really)
What’s in a name? For Pluto TV, it’s everything.
Next Monday, April 1, the free streaming service from Paramount, will be staging a rally to push for its namesake’s planetary status to be restored on its 10-year anniversary.
- Pluto was downgraded from a planet to a dwarf planet in 2006 (instantly throwing millions of us “My Very Energetic Mother Just Served Us Ninety Pizzas” users for a loop). Now, the streaming service is celebrating by literally rallying for Pluto to be named planet number nine once more.
In a press release for the event, the streamer announced that its Rally to Make Pluto a Planet will take place on Monday, April 1 from 11:30 a.m. ’til 1 p.m. PT at the UCLA Bruin Plaza. The event will feature as its central speaker Dr. Alan Stern, an astronaut and planet scientist who leads NASA’s Hew Horizons mission, which explored Pluto and is now heading to the Kuiper belt. It’ll also feature a special message from Neil deGrasse Tyson and snacks for attendees.
Ahead of the event, the streamer also launched a Change.org petition in support of its cause, which reads, in part, “It is time to right a cosmic wrong and restore Pluto to its former glory as a full-fledged planet… Pluto’s adversaries argued that it failed to meet the new qualifications to be considered a planet, namely that it had not cleared debris from its orbit. If that’s the case, Earth and Jupiter would not qualify either. With such inconsistency around what determines a planet, relegating Pluto to ‘dwarf’ status is simply semantic gymnastics and giving space enthusiasts wordplay whiplash.”
Here are some of the picket sign designs created by PlutoTV for the event.
