Read Online The Pluto Files: The Rise and Fall of America's Favorite Planet by Neil deGrasse Tyson - Free Book Online Page A
Authors: Neil deGrasse Tyson
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person who would become principal investigator of NASA’s New Horizons mission to Pluto and the Kuiper belt.
If any set of people was going to give us insight into the Pluto problem, it would be them. The right people at the right time and at the right place.
After I briefly reviewed the scientific and pedagogical challenges we all faced, each panelist opened with introductory remarks before the roundtable discussion began. During the 90-minute panel, A’Hearn came off as the strictly-business Pluto rationalist, willing to let you call Pluto a planet if you were investigating the inner working of sizable round bodies or to call it a Kuiper belt object (KBO) if you were investigating its origins. Levy was the unabashed sentimentalist—about Pluto, about astronomy, about science in general. Luu, supremely articulate and confident and by far the youngest person on the stage, was the dispassionate Pluto denigrator and rejectionist, terminally bored by what she considered an old and irrelevant question. Marsden, with his British accent, was the witty, affable multicategorizer. Stern took the Pluto-is-a-planet posture, simultaneously committing to the verdicts of both the laws of physics and the feelings of fifth graders.
For that evening, I was the dispassionate facilitator, inwardly open to arguments on all sides even though I’d already declared a preference in print.
Jane Luu kicked off the proceedings—and wasted no time getting her point across:
When Jewitt and I discovered the Kuiper belt and showed that Pluto was just another member of [it], we were quite pleased…. But I found out that our discovery raises questions that have proved to be painful for many people: Is Pluto truly a planet? Some scientists assert that Pluto’s tiny size and its membership in a swarm of similar objects mean that it should be classified a minor planet, like asteroids and comets. Others are outraged by the idea, insisting that regardless of how its identity has changed, demoting Pluto would dishonor astronomical history and confuse the public.
I personally don’t care one way or the other. Pluto just goes on the way it is, regardless of what you call it.
If that was not enough, Luu next drew the battle line between science and sentiment:
If Pluto continues to be referred to as the ninth planet, it would only be due to tradition and sentimental reasons. People are fond of planets, because the idea of a planet conjures up notions of home, life, happy things, and astronomers are always looking to find more planets, not to lose them. So in the end, the question goes back to this: Should science be a democratic process, or should logic have something to do with it?
She also reminded the audience, as I do earlier in this book, that when Ceres was first discovered, it (like Pluto) was thought to be a missing planet, but when other asteroid discoveries quickly followed, astronomers realized that Ceres was just the largest member of a new class of objects in a new place in the solar system—the asteroid belt—and so “its planethood was promptly revoked.” Therefore, she contended, if other members of the Kuiper belt had been discovered right after Pluto was, the planethood of Pluto would have been revoked with equal speed.
Luu ended by raising a blindingly obvious question:
We are continuing to try to find more Kuiper belt objects, and the search is going pretty well. What if we find other objects fairly close in size to Pluto—maybe even bigger, or maybe just a bit smaller—will these objects also be called planets, or what?
Her delivery was uncompromising, her tone icy. The audience loved her.
Next up was Alan Stern, on the opposite side of the fence and only slightly more willing than Luu to compromise, but a bit friendlier in tone. Like Luu, he declared that Pluto’s planethood should not be a matter of democracy, and like Luu (as well as the rest of the panelists), he chose a clever analogy. Referring to the problem of
If any set of people was going to give us insight into the Pluto problem, it would be them. The right people at the right time and at the right place.
After I briefly reviewed the scientific and pedagogical challenges we all faced, each panelist opened with introductory remarks before the roundtable discussion began. During the 90-minute panel, A’Hearn came off as the strictly-business Pluto rationalist, willing to let you call Pluto a planet if you were investigating the inner working of sizable round bodies or to call it a Kuiper belt object (KBO) if you were investigating its origins. Levy was the unabashed sentimentalist—about Pluto, about astronomy, about science in general. Luu, supremely articulate and confident and by far the youngest person on the stage, was the dispassionate Pluto denigrator and rejectionist, terminally bored by what she considered an old and irrelevant question. Marsden, with his British accent, was the witty, affable multicategorizer. Stern took the Pluto-is-a-planet posture, simultaneously committing to the verdicts of both the laws of physics and the feelings of fifth graders.
For that evening, I was the dispassionate facilitator, inwardly open to arguments on all sides even though I’d already declared a preference in print.
Jane Luu kicked off the proceedings—and wasted no time getting her point across:
When Jewitt and I discovered the Kuiper belt and showed that Pluto was just another member of [it], we were quite pleased…. But I found out that our discovery raises questions that have proved to be painful for many people: Is Pluto truly a planet? Some scientists assert that Pluto’s tiny size and its membership in a swarm of similar objects mean that it should be classified a minor planet, like asteroids and comets. Others are outraged by the idea, insisting that regardless of how its identity has changed, demoting Pluto would dishonor astronomical history and confuse the public.
I personally don’t care one way or the other. Pluto just goes on the way it is, regardless of what you call it.
If that was not enough, Luu next drew the battle line between science and sentiment:
If Pluto continues to be referred to as the ninth planet, it would only be due to tradition and sentimental reasons. People are fond of planets, because the idea of a planet conjures up notions of home, life, happy things, and astronomers are always looking to find more planets, not to lose them. So in the end, the question goes back to this: Should science be a democratic process, or should logic have something to do with it?
She also reminded the audience, as I do earlier in this book, that when Ceres was first discovered, it (like Pluto) was thought to be a missing planet, but when other asteroid discoveries quickly followed, astronomers realized that Ceres was just the largest member of a new class of objects in a new place in the solar system—the asteroid belt—and so “its planethood was promptly revoked.” Therefore, she contended, if other members of the Kuiper belt had been discovered right after Pluto was, the planethood of Pluto would have been revoked with equal speed.
Luu ended by raising a blindingly obvious question:
We are continuing to try to find more Kuiper belt objects, and the search is going pretty well. What if we find other objects fairly close in size to Pluto—maybe even bigger, or maybe just a bit smaller—will these objects also be called planets, or what?
Her delivery was uncompromising, her tone icy. The audience loved her.
Next up was Alan Stern, on the opposite side of the fence and only slightly more willing than Luu to compromise, but a bit friendlier in tone. Like Luu, he declared that Pluto’s planethood should not be a matter of democracy, and like Luu (as well as the rest of the panelists), he chose a clever analogy. Referring to the problem of
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