Dear Pluto,

Ever since I was a little girl, I’ve been amazed by space. It’s a difficult concept to grasp because of all its mysteries we have yet to solve. How many stars are actually out there? How many planets and moons have we not discovered? Does life exist in another world? We think we know all there is about space and in a second realize there’s so much more.

Just like there’s so much more to you. Let me begin by saying I’m a huge fan. Despite being some 93 million miles away, you’ve always been my favorite planet. Some might say it’s because a famous Disney dog was named after you, but it goes deeper than that.

To Earthlings like me, you represent feelings far more sentimental.

You represent curiosity. Percival Lowell and, eventually, Clyde Tombaugh’s combined efforts to actively search for you prove how curious we are as humans. If we find that one planet’s orbit is disturbed by something unknown, we look for it. And once we find it, we expand our search for objects around it. Our curiosity sends us into a never-ending search for the unknown, whether that is in space, in the ocean, on land, etc.

You represent imagination. Your name came from the imagination of an 11-year-old girl in England. Paintings and drawings of you came from the imaginations of artists who for decades could only dream up what you looked like. If both children and adults imagined aspects of you as a planet, then why is using our imagination generally looked down on as we grow older? If you’ve shown us anything, it’s that using one’s imagination should be embraced by all ages.

You represent loneliness. Being the farthest planet in our solar system means you don’t get visitors often. After all, it took more than 80 years to get a good picture of you. Scientists at the International Astronomical Union even had the nerve to declassify you from being an “official” planet. That’s true loneliness, and people can relate. There are times we feel like no one cares. We can be someone’s best friend and in a moment have that connection stripped away. We enter a room and no one notices. At times we feel like we could disappear and it wouldn’t matter.

But you also represent love. Something could have knocked you out of orbit, causing us to lose you forever. We’d finally realize what we lost, but it would be too late. People toss each other aside all the time, not realizing their mistake until it’s too far-gone to fix. We need to learn from you. Because even after you get ignored and declassified, you still show us your huge, beautiful heart when we finally take a look.

Thank you for being that symbol and for not giving up on us. I’ll never give up on you.

All my love, number 9.