- When the Rose Center for Earth and Space at the American Museum of Natural History reclassified Pluto as an icy comet, the New York Times proclaimed on page one, Pluto Not a Planet? Only in New York. Immediately, the public, professionals, and press were choosing sides over Pluto s planethood. Pluto is entrenched in our cultural and emotional view of the cosmos, and Neil deGrasse Tyson, director of the Rose Center, is on a quest to discover why. He stood at the heart of the controversy over Pluto s demotion, and, consequently, plutophiles have freely shared their opinions with him, including endless hate mail from third-graders.