Pluto is a planet once again, at least on Feb. 18 in the New Mexico House of Representatives.
The House voted unanimously this morning to pass Rep. Joni Gutierrez' House Memorial 40, which declares Feb. 18 "Pluto as a Planet Day."
Gutierrez carried the memorial -- as she has in the past -- because Pluto’s discoverer, Clyde Tombaugh, is from Dona Ana County. He died in 1997.
Here's something in the memorial that I didn't know: "...approximately one ounce of (Tombaugh's) ashes is being carried on the New Horizons spacecraft that was launched in 2006 and that is scheduled for a fly-by of Pluto in 2014."
Most astronomers no longer consider Pluto a planet.
As loyal readers of this blog know, Astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson poked fun at New Mexico on The Daily Show last month because of a similar Pluto memorial two years ago.
What the heck. Let's rerun that video.
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It is not true that "most astronomers" no longer consider Pluto a planet. Only four percent of the International Astronomical Union voted for the demotion, and most are not planetary scientists. Their decision was immediately opposed in a petition by an equal number of professional astronomers led by Dr. Alan Stern, Principal Investigator of NASA's New Horizons mission to Pluto. You can find that petition here: http://www.ipetitions.com/petition/planetprotest/
ReplyDeleteAlso, many planetary scientists are not members of the IAU at all and therefore were unable to vote on this issue. The reality is closer to an even split between dynamicists, astronomers who study the relationships between celestial objects, and planetary scientists, who study the geophysical composition of those individual objects. You can find out more at the site of the Great Planet Debate, held in Laurel, MD in August 2008, at http://gpd.jhuapl.edu/ Many astronomers and lay people are working behind the scenes to overturn this demotion. This debate is far from over.