The weekly newsletter for Fed2 by ibgames

EARTHDATE: August 27, 2006

Official News - page 7

REAL LIFE NEWS: PLUTO'S DEMOTION - THE BACKLASH STARTS

After I wrote the previous article about Pluto being demoted to dwarf planet status, I started to read stories quoting astronomers who were not happy at all by its loss of planetary status. The lead scientist on NASA's New Horizons mission to Pluto has lambasted the ruling, calling it "embarrassing".

There have also been accusations that the vote had been "hijacked". The vote took place on the final day of the astronomers conference in Prague, and despite 2,700 attendees throughout the conference, only 424 were there for that crucial final vote. And there are over 10,000 astronomers in the world, many of whom - obviously - didn't attend the conference, so the voters can't claim there was consensus over the decision.

Dr Alan Stern, the New Horizons leader, complains that the new definition that a planet must have "cleared the neighbourhood around its orbit" is inconsistent. The largest objects in the Solar System will either aggregate material in their path or fling them out of the way with a gravitational swipe. Pluto was disqualified because its highly elliptical orbit overlaps with that of Neptune. But Dr Stern points out that Earth, Mars, Jupiter and Neptune have also not fully cleared their orbital zones - Earth orbits with 10,000 near-Earth asteroids, and Jupiter is accompanied by 100,000 asteroids. He added, "If Neptune had cleared its zone, Pluto wouldn't be there."

He said that like-minded astronomers have started to campaign to get this decision overturned so that Pluto gets its planetary status back. There's a petition, and car bumper stickers saying "Honk if Pluto is still a planet" are on sale on the net.

But other astronomers were happy to see Pluto demoted. Professor Iwan Williams, the International Astronomy Union's president of planetary systems science, commented, "Pluto has lots and lots of friends; we're not so keen to have Pluto and all his friends in the club because it gets crowded. By the end of the decade, we would have had 100 planets, and I think people would have said 'my goodness, what a mess they made back in 2006'."

The whole thing seems to be a tiff between two different types of astronomers: planetary geologists, who study the makeup of the planets, and dynamicists, who study the motion and gravitational effects of celestial objects. The original definition which would have seen Pluto, Charon and the others granted planetary status, was favored by the geologists, but the dynamicists raised a fuss and came up with the new definition which suited their model better - and that's the one that carried the day when the votes were cast.

Frankly, it all seems like a bit of an unnecessary argument to me. I am sure that the general public will take no notice of this whatsoever, and will continue to regard Pluto as the ninth planet.


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