Pluto sat at the edge of the solar system.
Further than Neptune.
Colder than cold.
Small.
Very, very small.
He had always been the ninth planet.
Him, the eight big ones, all going around the sun in their orderly way.
Until the day the scientists said: actually, Pluto, you’re not a proper planet.
You’re too small.
You’re a dwarf planet.
The big eight kept going around the sun.
Pluto sat at the edge.
“Not a proper planet,” said Pluto quietly. “What even am I then?” 🪐
🌌 Sitting at the Edge
The other planets were very polite about it.
Jupiter said it didn’t matter.
Jupiter was enormous and could afford to be generous.
Saturn offered a ring, which Pluto felt was showing off.
Earth sent a probe to visit, which was kind but also meant a lot of scientists pointing instruments at Pluto’s heart-shaped patch of ice and writing things down.
The heart-shaped patch was real. It was called Tombaugh Regio. Pluto was rather proud of it.
But still.
Not a planet.
Just a small cold rock at the edge of everything.
“I’m not anything,” said Pluto.
🪐 Who Came Next
And then, one by one, others appeared.
Eris. Makemake. Haumea. Sedna.
Dwarf planets. All of them. Small and cold and far from the centre.
They drifted toward Pluto one by one.
“You’re Pluto,” said Eris. “We know you. You’re famous. They had a whole argument about you.”
“They demoted me,” said Pluto.
“They made a category just for us,” said Eris. “Dwarf planets. We’re our own group now.”
Pluto looked at them all. Gathered at the edge.
Small. Cold. Far from the middle.
But together.
💛 Elijah Defends Pluto
Elijah was doing a project on the solar system and kept putting Pluto in.
“Pluto isn’t a planet,” said someone.
“Pluto is a dwarf planet,” said Elijah. “Which is a real thing. And it has mountains and ice and a heart on its surface and five moons and it’s been going around the sun since before the dinosaurs. So.”
A pause.
“So it counts,” said Elijah.
Far away at the edge of the solar system, Pluto’s heart-shaped patch of ice caught a very faint glint of the distant sun.
Glint.
It counted.
It always had. 🪐