Pluto loses its membership in the planetary club

Published on August 24th, 2006

So now instead of three new planets for kids to learn, there’s one less. Pluto wasn’t all that great a planet, anyway. It wasn’t even the planet farthest out for most of the last quarter-century!

Leading astronomers declared Thursday that Pluto is no longer a planet under historic new guidelines that downsize the solar system from nine planets to eight.

After a tumultuous week of clashing over the essence of the cosmos, the International Astronomical Union stripped Pluto of the planetary status it has held since its discovery in 1930. The new definition of what is — and isn’t — a planet fills a centuries-old black hole for scientists who have labored since Copernicus without one.

The only real question is, does it really matter? It’s still out there, no matter what we call it.

41 users responded in " Pluto loses its membership in the planetary club "

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# 1 moss said, on August 24th, 2006 at 7:39 am

Your question is a chuckle, SmartAlix.

All the spooky and superstitious types think that what they or their holy books call something — actually means something. They aren’t about to let material reality interfere with their belief systems.

It’s been fun following the discussion in astronomic journals; but, even the most committed to one side or another have the common sense to realize they were only talking about classification.

# 2 Smartalix said, on August 24th, 2006 at 7:54 am

At the edges of science it gets even more fun, Moss. Listening to cosmologists discuss multiple dimensions in string theory is like listening to monks debate the number of angels that can dance on the head of a pin.

# 3 andrew said, on August 24th, 2006 at 7:55 am

Pluto is no big loss…it was a Mickey Mouse planet anyway

# 4 Jim Dermitt said, on August 24th, 2006 at 8:10 am

A spokesman from Pluto said, “we wouldn’t want to be a member of a solar system who would have us.”

# 5 Nirendra said, on August 24th, 2006 at 8:12 am

3: Classic.

# 6 Jim Dermitt said, on August 24th, 2006 at 8:16 am

It’s now the Shemp of the solar system. Everybody remembers Moe, Larry and Curly. Pluto is the odd planet out.

# 7 sh said, on August 24th, 2006 at 8:20 am

Clyde Tombaugh would be devastated.

# 8 Doug said, on August 24th, 2006 at 8:52 am

Don’t care how many “planets” there are, 8, 9, 12, or 1000. I just care that the astronomical body classification system is consistent and leads to good science. Let the definitions change. Let it change again in a few years. Good science adapts, and should not be concerned with public opinion, or the cost of changing textbooks. Astronomical will be obsolete in a few years anyway.

# 9 Jim Dermitt said, on August 24th, 2006 at 9:08 am

Good science and public opinion don’t cause conflict. Should all the science professionals should bury their heads in the sand? Public opinion can help advance science and understanding. Public opinion changes. Scientists are also part of the public and have opinions, believe it or not. Science ignoring public opinion is just political thuggery.

# 10 Gibson said, on August 24th, 2006 at 9:19 am

So, science should include public opinion huh…um…ok.

Public opinion believes there’s an invisible man that lives in the sky and watches everything we do, every second of every day….just an example of public opinion. You really want public opinion in on scientific research?

# 11 Shadowbird said, on August 24th, 2006 at 9:22 am

Pluto’s still a planet to me. PC be damned.

# 12 Angel H. Wong said, on August 24th, 2006 at 9:25 am

This is a clear example a “geek cat fight.”

# 13 DeeCee said, on August 24th, 2006 at 9:27 am

Never been there, can’t tell you if it’s true.

# 14 Miguel said, on August 24th, 2006 at 9:43 am

In the meantime, I didn’t know how to send this in, so here:

http://www.thespacereview.com/article/669/1

Apparently some wacko seriously considered sending a one man, one way mission to Mars…. Yes, ONE WAY! A suicide mission. And the article is dead serious…

Just goes to show how desperate the US Space Program has gotten… It can’t rid itself from all the political and economical problems it’s had during the past 30, going on 40, years, so let’s just give up and send a suicide up there…

Yikes…

# 15 no one important said, on August 24th, 2006 at 9:59 am

I always figured Pluto was just a little lost moon anyway.

And why is a one-way Mars mission “wacko?” I’d go.

# 16 Jim Dermitt said, on August 24th, 2006 at 10:01 am

Political science depends on public opinion and we have elections. All science can benefit from public opinion. I guess if you are a facist or want a dictatorship, you say the hell with public opinion. The public will say screw you.

# 17 Gibson said, on August 24th, 2006 at 10:16 am

So Jim if the public wants something, science should just throw away facts and observation and everything that makes science and go with public opinion?

Ok, the world is flat then, Earth is also the center of the universe. The planets are really on crystal spheres circling the world. That was the public opinion hundreds of years ago and those pesky dictatorship scientists ignored that and found something different! Let’s throw that all out now and go back to what the public opinion was and move forward from there.

Also, political science is a tad different from the hard sciences…and I’m amazed I have to point that out to someone.

# 18 Jim Dermitt said, on August 24th, 2006 at 10:43 am

I’m not sure exactly what a tad is or what hard science is. If it works for you, scientifically or not, I can respect your opinion. Part of science is imagination and that can’t be measured. I imagine other people have different opinions. Thanks for pointing things out. I’m really confused now.

# 19 Awake said, on August 24th, 2006 at 10:46 am

But there are 9 planets remaining… don’t forget Planet “X” that is going to destroy the Earth. Or is it’s orbit too elliptical to be included as a planet?

# 20 Mike Drips said, on August 24th, 2006 at 10:52 am

Screw em!

Show your support of Pluto by refusing to accept this downgrade!

Who is the authority here? If we choose to say that a piece of gravel orbiting the sun is a planet, so be it. If the definition changes to say that a planet is only a planet if it supports Earth like life, then we are down to one planet and that weirdo moon that appears to be capable of supporting life, uh, it orbits Nepture/Uranus or a planet to be named in the future. I can’t recall the name due to a lack of coffee/drugs/oxygen today.

Wait! What if we decide that only red planets are planets. That cuts the whole solor system down to Mars and whatever side of Mercury is currently facing the sun (Mercury isn’t any large whopping size of a planet either, although it is bigger than Pluto).

Does anyone actually care about all of this once you are out of grade school?

I am on Earth. Earth orbits the Sun. Therefore I orbit the Sun. Am I a planet?

# 21 Jim Dermitt said, on August 24th, 2006 at 11:08 am

In my mind Pluto will always be a planet. Once a planet, always a planet. What’s next? Most stuff done or decided on globally turns into a mess sooner or later. Now we are deciding the status of other planets as we screw our own planet up. Next some global group will be renaming the Moon or some international corporation will be selling naming rights for it. The Moon is made of cheese, so it’s really dumb calling it the Moon. It’s really just a cheese planet. The Pluto designation was decided on after several bottles of wine.

# 22 sirfelix said, on August 24th, 2006 at 11:14 am

The other solar systems are now laughing at us. “Look at Earth. They are a bunch of idiots! First they elect Bush twice and now this Pluto thing. Can’t they get anything right?”

# 23 Jim Dermitt said, on August 24th, 2006 at 12:08 pm

The intelligent life from other parts of the solar system who built the Internet for us (you don’t think we built it) may just decide it’s time to shut it off.

Look at Earth, we give them the Internet and all they do is try to break the damn thing and now the budinskis delist Pluto.

You might go to connect and find the whole Internet is no longer here. They might just erase all the servers with a giant space magnet or something. Bush will be on television declaring it terrorism and we’ll be invading Pluto next. Pluto is part of the axis of evil and a solar system sponsor of terrorism. Certainly we’ll see the Department of Earthland Security jump into action. Condi Rice will be yapping about cooperation between the community of planets and Rumsfeld will be planning detention camps on the Moon. Cheney will declare World War 3.0 on the entire solar system and line up old corporate pals for a raid on the Treasury Department and World Bank. Every Republican will remind you that the solar system would of been safer if we just built Reagans Star Wars system. Kissinger will just shake his head and try to explain the unexplainable like he’s been doing since the Nixon days.

# 24 Homer Simpson said, on August 24th, 2006 at 12:22 pm

Don’t forget that terrible planet of the apes.

# 25 Sagrilarus said, on August 24th, 2006 at 12:29 pm

Science has nothing to do with imagination. Science is observation of nature, hypothesizing about how nature works, and then testing to either prove or refute the hypothesis.

Imagination may squeak a position in the development of the test cases, but is out otherwise.

Public opinion is generally nothing but an obstacle to science. Once sufficient proof has been established, science should affect public opinion, not the other way around.

Anyone can participate in science. It is not aristocratic or exclusive. Three year olds perform experiments on the edge of their local pond everyday by skipping rocks, watching ripples, finding creatures. Although not well structured or recorded, it is science nonetheless. Science is open to all comers.

If you are bold enough publish scientific findings, expect it to be reviewed and duplicated by the remainder of the community. The very nature of science is to correct mistakes.

# 26 Sagrilarus said, on August 24th, 2006 at 12:31 pm

By the way, the decision to call Pluto a planet or not has nothing to do with science. It’s merely a definition of terms. You can call it a banana-pop if you want — as long as everyone comes to a concensus on terminology any classification you give it will do.

# 27 Smartalix said, on August 24th, 2006 at 2:17 pm

Like I said, it’s still up there no matter what we call it.

#14,

We blogged that one-way trip to mars HERE. Dumb idea IMNSHO.

# 28 Jim Dermitt said, on August 24th, 2006 at 2:42 pm

A human has an imagination. We are all a part of nature and without us there would be no science. Science is human and a part of humanity. Science has a whole lot to do with imagination. I don’t see how you can seperate humanity from science and have a humanity worth much of anything. You can’t study science in any meaningful way without using your imagination, unless you want to be bored out of your mind.

# 29 Jim Dermitt said, on August 24th, 2006 at 2:58 pm

You can’t study science in any meaningful way without using your imagination, unless you want to be bored out of your mind.

This doesn’t apply to government scientists. They are forbidden from using any part of their imagination unless designing something that can wipe the population of the Earth out in seconds. Bombs away!

# 30 OhForTheLoveOf said, on August 24th, 2006 at 3:03 pm

PLUTO IS A PLANET!!!

I’ll fight any man who says otherwise!!!!

# 31 OhForTheLoveOf said, on August 24th, 2006 at 3:06 pm

Wow Jim…

I like your spirit here – but you really do have a skewed view of science.

Imagination makes for good science fiction. Reality makes for better actual science.

# 32 Enzo said, on August 24th, 2006 at 3:26 pm

Pluto — “Size does not matter, it’s what you do with it.”

In Pluto’s case its how you orbit I guess. If your not in the same plane as the other planets, YOUR out.

Remember that post about relative size of Earth, planets and Suns.
Guess we are just an Asteroid that happens to hold a bunch of sentient creatures that discuss things out of there realm.

Enzo

# 33 William K. Wolfrum said, on August 24th, 2006 at 3:37 pm

Without one ounce of hyperbole, let me say this: This is the greatest thread ever.

Science ignoring public opinion is just political thuggery.

Jim Dermitt, if you wrote a book on this subject titled
“In my mind Pluto will always be a planet,” I would buy it and read it, cover to cover.

From the story:

“Instead, it will be reclassified in a new category of “dwarf planets,”

Listen you insensitive bastards, that would be “Little Person Planet”

-WKW

# 34 Jim Dermitt said, on August 24th, 2006 at 3:58 pm

William,
I’ll file that in my growing ideas for a new book file. If I could get an advance it would be a deal. I’ve already sold one copy. Maybe I should take orders and then write the book. Everybody wants it like yesterday, today.
Thanks!

# 35 joshua said, on August 24th, 2006 at 7:13 pm

A one way trip to Mars would be cool…..IMNSHO

# 36 Bruce IV said, on August 24th, 2006 at 8:41 pm

WKW – They’ll have to rename the white dwarf stars to “Caucasian little person stars” too

Besides that, its an over-reported change in classifications. Pluto is there. It is not similar enough to the remaining 8 planets to remain one. Whatever – the textbooks will catch up in 30 years. – As I understand it they’ve found a sort of second asteroid belt out in Pluto’s region – perhaps it is just a big asteroid then (like Ceres, the biggest rock in the main belt)

# 37 Flash Sandbox said, on August 25th, 2006 at 5:32 am

Did anyone else notice how MSNBC can’t count?

“Pluto and its moon Charon, which would both have been planets under the initial definition proposed Aug. 16, now get demoted because they are part of a sea of other objects that occupy the same region of space. Earth and the other eight large planets have, on the other hand, cleared broad swaths of space of any other large objects.”

Eight? That’s the new total number of planets. Someone wasn’t paying attention when they wrote the article…

# 38 kayla said, on August 29th, 2006 at 2:17 pm

why is pluto no longer a planet it is still out so how come why did you vote on this who said this?

# 39 Jim Dermitt said, on September 3rd, 2006 at 6:00 pm

“We, as planetary scientists and astronomers, do not agree with the IAU’s definition of a planet, nor will we use it. A better definition is needed.”
http://www.ipetitions.com/petition/planetprotest

“The petition organiser, Mark Sykes, who is director of the Planetary Science Institute in Tucson, Arizona, said the IAU definition of a planet “does not meet fundamental scientific standards and should be set aside.”"

“NASA’s New Horizons mission to Pluto. Its spacecraft — which also bears some of the ashes of US astronomer Clyde Tombaugh, who discovered Pluto in 1930 — blasted off in January this year, months before the IAU decision that relegated Pluto’s status.”
Source: http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20060901/sc_afp/
scienceastronomypluto

In my mind Pluto will always be a planet. The IAU designation should not stand.

# 40 Jim Dermitt said, on September 3rd, 2006 at 6:19 pm

Government must have some creative scientists. I guess we wouldn’t have NASA without them. I guess I had war on my mind last week. Too much of that gets you thinking mad. Nothing much we can do about that. You have mad scientists out there.

# 41 Jim Dermitt said, on January 9th, 2007 at 12:15 pm

I just saw this.
“The verb “to Pluto,” meaning to demote or devalue something as the former planet was, has been voted the American Dialect Society’s 2006 Word of the Year.”
I bet it doesn’t catch on.

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