February Book Events

Tyson is dead wrong about Pluto. I am a writer and amateur astronomer who has spent the last two and a half years campaigning to get Pluto's demotion overturned. Over the past year, I have done several public presentations on this topic, including one at the national Great Planet Debate at the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory in
Maryland this past August.

In my opinion, Tyson is wrong on several key points:

1. Pluto as a planet is not in a category of one. There are several of these smaller planets that need to be distinguished from asteroids because their makeup is exactly like that of planets in that they are in a state of hydrostatic equilibrium. This means they have enough self gravity to pull themselves into a round shape, which makes them geologically differentiated like the larger planets and unlike shapeless asteroids and comets. Tyson never discusses hydrostatic equilibrium and blurs this crucial distinction by lumping Pluto and other small Kuiper Belt planets with comets and asteroids.

2. The scientific community has not made a final decision on this matter. This definition was adopted by only four percent of the IAU, most of whom are not planetary scientists. No absentee voting was allowed. It was done so in a highly controversial process that violated the IAU’s own bylaws, and it was immediately opposed by a petition of 300 professional astronomers led by Dr. Alan Stern, Principal Investigator of New Horizons, saying they will not use the new definition, which they described accurately as “sloppy.”

Also significant is the fact that many planetary scientists are not IAU members and therefore had no say in this matter at all.

Many believe we should keep the term planet broad to encompass any non-self-luminous spheroidal object orbiting a star.

3. Support for Pluto's planethood is not limited to Americans. I have personally received
emails from around the world opposing Pluto's demotion, and there are Internet groups worldwide committed to seeing Pluto reinstated. Many songs and poems opposing the
demotion were written by people other than Americans.

4. Tyson's claim that people's emotional attachment to Pluto is largely due to the Disney dog is at best questionable. Most Pluto supporters are astronomy enthusiasts with a strong interest in the solar system. They view the solar system as a "family," and see a round object that looks exactly like a planet and find it bizarre that anyone would categorize it as something else.

Please feel free to visit my Pluto blog at http://laurele.livejournal.com for more
information about the other side. I am planning to
write my own book on Pluto presenting this viewpoint.