Alan Stern Quotes

Pluto has a very interesting history, and there is a lot of work that we need to do to understand this very complicated place.

Back before the Kuiper Belt was discovered, Pluto did look like a misfit that didn't belong with either the terrestrials or the giant planets.

I think that one of the things that will come out of the New Horizons mission is that the public will take a look, and they won't know what else to call Pluto but a planet - and a pretty exciting one.

I actually started my career in planetary science with a master's thesis on Pluto.

Pluto and its brethren are the most populous class of planets in our solar system.

Of course Pluto is a planet: It's massive enough to have its shape controlled by gravity rather than material strength, which is the hallmark of planethood.

The planets. Now footnote, I'm including Pluto in the planets, because I think it's terrible what they did to Pluto. And it's still a planet to me. I grew up with Pluto as a planet, it will always be a planet.

Why can't Pluto be a planet? Some people like Pluto. And if it doesn't exist then they don't have a favorite planet. Right? Please write back but not in cursive because I can't read cursive.

The public has an incredible capacity for appreciating the wonder of our planet, our solar system, our universe.

It's interesting - Pluto's almost a brand unto itself. It's the farthest. It's the most diminutive of the classical planets. It's been maligned by astronomers. It's always the one with all the question marks in the back of the textbook in the table. I think children identify with it because it's smaller, kind of cute.

The Pluto system is much more complex than I had expected.

I'm the one who originally coined the term 'dwarf planet,' back in the nineteen-nineties.

Liquids may have existed on the surface of Pluto in the past.

Pluto is the new Mars.

I call Pluto the harbinger.

As a planetary scientist, I don't know what else to call Pluto: It's big and round and thousands of miles wide.

I think when people see Pluto revealed by New Horizons, its satellite system, its complex surface, its atmosphere, I think they'll have a hard time saying 'That's not a planet' because it obviously will be, and I think most people are already coming to that opinion anyway, but I think that's really going to drive it home viscerally.

Pluto is showing us a diversity of landforms and complexity of processes that rival anything we've seen in the solar system.

Never go to Pluto, it's a Mickey Mouse planet.

I loved Pluto. I was totally fascinated by Pluto. When I started in astronomy, I started looking at this region of the sky because I thought it was so interesting out there.

Look at that! If you ever needed convincing that we live in the solar system, that we are on a ball of rock, orbiting around the Sun with other balls of rock, then look at that! That's the solar system coming down and grabbing you by the throat.

Near the sun is the center of the universe.

We're just one rock surrounded by this immense universe.

The universe is a big place, perhaps the biggest.

Everything has a natural explanation. The moon is not a god, but a great rock, and the sun a hot rock.