Neil deGrasse Tyson: I was baptized into the planet world when we designed our exhibits here in New York City at the American Museum of Natural History, 10 years ago.
That’s Neil deGrasse Tyson of that museum’s Hayden Planetarium and the PBS series NOVA ScienceNOW. He’s talking about the museum exhibit that helped launch the debate a decade ago over Pluto.
Neil deGrasse Tyson: We wanted to create an exhibit that had a high shelf-life. We looked around at the trend lines where things were headed the solar system. What we found in the mid-90s was that researchers were discovering new objects in the outer solar system, objects that were small like Pluto, icy like Pluto, with elongated orbits like Pluto, with tipped orbits like Pluto. And we thought to ourselves, maybe it’s not that Pluto was the 9th planet. Maybe Pluto was the first object of a new class of objects that populates this outer zone in the solar system.
That museum exhibit at the American Museum of Natural History in New York led to what Tyson called a “firestorm” of response and debate. Six years later, in 2006, astronomers voted to demote Pluto to dwarf planet status. The controversy continues. But Tyson pointed out there’s a much bigger picture out there to know and understand, for example in the 400 planets now known to orbit stars beyond our sun.
Neil deGrasse Tyson: Let’s celebrate the infinite variety in the universe rather than ignore it and worry about just these nine objects that have been discovered historically.
Dr. Tyson’s recent book is called The Pluto Files: The Rise and Fall of America’s Favorite Planet. It’s the subject of a NOVA documentary set for release in early March 2010. Many people were upset when Pluto was demoted from planet status to dwarf planet status, thus disrupting the mnemonic, “My Very Educated Mother Just Served Us Nine Pizzas,” and Mother no longer served pizza. Dr. Tyson advocates that educators re-imagine how we teach the solar system.
Neil deGrasse Tyson: Want to learn about the solar system? Choose physical ideas. How about rings? That would be Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune. How about ice? That would be all the comets, plus Pluto and some of the moons of Jupiter. How about ice caps? That would be Mars and Earth. How about magnetic fields? How about the possibility of life? How about liquid water? How about habitable zones? Choose your scientific subject and then call from all that is in the solar system; those objects that serve the needs of that particular conversation. That’s how we should be thinking about the solar system. Not rote memory about the sequence of the names of these nine objects in order from the sun. There’s no science in that.
As I recall, the original news reports of the planetarium display which started the firestorm suggested that Pluto was left out so that the scale of the display could be larger, without leaving out any major planets. That made it seem like an arbitrary decision, and helped fuel the flames. Properly communicating with the news media is difficult, but can save a lot of grief.
so what if pluto is demoted to a dwarf planet and for whatever reason. It is still, a planet and nothing less.Thought that there may be others like it in its neighborhood doesn’t mean much;other mainstream and giant planets too have their likes.Stop unnecessary controveries
The problem is that the controversial IAU demotion says that dwarf planets are not planets at all. This makes no sense and goes against the use of the term “dwarf” in astronomy, where dwarf stars are still stars, and dwarf galaxies are still galaxies.
It is important to note that Tyson has distanced himself from the controversial 2006 IAU decision, which he himself admits is flawed. At this point, he even admits that the debate is not over, that it might be too early in the study of planetary scientists for anyone to be defining what a planet is in the first place. This was pretty much his message at the Isaac Asimov Memorial Debate, which he moderated at the American Museum of Natural History on March 10, 2009.
Significantly, only four percent of the IAU voted on Pluto’s demotion, and most are not planetary scientists. Their decision was immediately rejected by hundreds of professional astronomers led by Dr. Alan Stern, Principal Investigator of NASA’s New Horizons mission to Pluto.
1. First, the claim that it is only or even mostly Americans who oppose the demotion of Pluto is flat out wrong. As someone who runs a blog advocating Pluto’s planetary reinstatement, I have heard from hundreds of people all over the world expressing their dissent with the controversial demotion done by only four percent of the IAU, most of whom are not planetary scientists. In online astronomy forums and classes, it is evident that support for Pluto’s planet status is strong worldwide.
Second, the reason for that support is not the Disney dog. Most who oppose Pluto’s demotion, including children, are people who already have an interest in astronomy and the solar system. They look at the confusion created by the IAU definition, which Tyson himself admits is “flawed,” and realize it makes no sense in two ways: it states that dwarf planets are not planets at all, and it defines objects solely by where they are while ignoring what they are. The further an object is from its parent star, the larger an orbit it will have to “clear.” If Earth were in Pluto’s orbit, according to the IAU definition, it would not be a planet either. That is why hundreds of professional astronomers led by Dr. Alan Stern, Principal Investigator of NASA’s New Horizons mission to Pluto, signed a formal petition opposing the demotion.
As Pluto is not in the Kuiper Belt, I feel they have made an error. Also, if planets are going to be re-classified….then I propose that a planet must have a core mass larger made of rock. So all the gas giants need to be demoted as well and re-classified.
Also and update, less than 4% of the members were able to vote at IAU. No e-mails, faxes, letters or phone calls were allowed if you did not pay the expensive plane, hotel, auto rental to attend the vote. Does that sound correctly done to you?