Revenge of the Space Geeks: Oh no you di'n't just deplanetize Pluto

I can't wait for the Anchorman style gangwar:

Dr Alan Stern, who leads the US space agency's New Horizons mission to Pluto and did not vote in Prague, told BBC News: "It's an awful definition; it's sloppy science and it would never pass peer review - for two reasons.
Pluto discoverer Clyde Tombaugh pictured in 1980 (AP)
Pluto was discovered in 1930 by the American Clyde Tombaugh
"Firstly, it is impossible and contrived to put a dividing line between dwarf planets and planets. It's as if we declared people not people for some arbitrary reason, like 'they tend to live in groups'.
"Secondly, the actual definition is even worse, because it's inconsistent."
One of the three criteria for planethood states that a planet must have "cleared the neighbourhood around its orbit". The largest objects in the Solar System will either aggregate material in their path or fling it out of the way with a gravitational swipe.
Pluto was disqualified because its highly elliptical orbit overlaps with that of Neptune.
But Dr Stern pointed out that Earth, Mars, Jupiter and Neptune have also not fully cleared their orbital zones. Earth orbits with 10,000 near-Earth asteroids. Jupiter, meanwhile, is accompanied by 100,000 Trojan asteroids on its orbital path.
These rocks are all essentially chunks of rubble left over from the formation of the Solar System more than four billion years ago.
"If Neptune had cleared its zone, Pluto wouldn't be there," he added.
Stern said like-minded astronomers had begun a petition to get Pluto reinstated. Car bumper stickers compelling motorists to "Honk if Pluto is still a planet" have gone on sale over the internet and e-mails circulating about the decision have been describing the IAU as the "Irrelevant Astronomical Union".

Theory: These geeks had to come out of there with some news, and this was the easiest way to get attention.

But honestly, that take-down is pretty good. Their definition doesn't seem to make any sense, and seems constructed backwards just to get the headline-making conclusion that Pluto isn't a planet.

This seems to be a generational thing. Some writer on NRO was happy about returning the Solar System to the "traditional eight."

Traditional eight? I guess Pluto was deemed a planet shortly before I came of age, because I never heard of any "eight" planets.

At least in one small respect, I can count myself among the younger generation.

Posted by: Ace at 02:05 PM

Comments

1 Now all the plutards are whining.

Posted by: Emperor of Icecream at August 25, 2006 02:08 PM (w4Bx4)

2 "Plutards". I love it!

I really wish people would stop talking about this as if they just lost an election.

Posted by: Cary from Houston at August 25, 2006 02:16 PM (aJFeb)

3 I have Pluto Derangement Syndrome and I'm not ashamed to admit it.

Posted by: ace at August 25, 2006 02:17 PM (h7Mal)

4 psst, ace, there's a little spluto around uranus

you might want a towel

Posted by: hobgoblin at August 25, 2006 02:20 PM (p1s9n)

5 "Firstly, it is impossible and contrived to put a dividing line between dwarf planets and planets. It's as if we declared people not people for some arbitrary reason, like 'they tend to live in groups."

Or, say, they were still in utero?

Has Pluto been aborted???

Posted by: Greg Tinti at August 25, 2006 02:21 PM (DiPI3)

The catch is that if you keep Pluto, you pretty much have to add several more objects into the mix. It was either subtract one planet, or add egg shaped planetoids by the name of 2003 EL_61. There were at least 12 other candidates that would have to be considered as additions if Pluto was not downgraded.

Posted by: Asher at August 25, 2006 02:28 PM (88XUY)

7 Well... it is good that you admit it Ace, that is the first step. Remember what GI Joe always said: Knowing is half the battle.

So now that you know the Sun does not revolve around the Earth; what are your plans? Disneyworld?

Posted by: Cary from Houston at August 25, 2006 02:28 PM (aJFeb)

8 When Gustav Holst wrote The Planets before WWI, he only included the original 8, there is no Pluto in his work. So although our later generations think commonly of Pluto as part of the Solar System, earlier generations didn't. Of course, the Boomer generation always gets its way....

Posted by: Robert at August 25, 2006 02:31 PM (pCBxo)

9 If Pluto was disqualified because it hasn't "cleared the neighbourhood around its orbit", and it hasn't cleared it because "its highly elliptical orbit overlaps with that of Neptune", then why isn't Neptune also disqualified for the exact same reason? That makes no sense.

I blame the powerful Neptune lobby.

Posted by: dorkafork at August 25, 2006 02:32 PM (ksDNy)

10 How do geeks do their own version of Fight Club?

The answer is before us.

Posted by: Evil Chihuahua at August 25, 2006 02:32 PM (mAhn3)

11 These are people woefully in need of a real job.

Fucking planetists.

Posted by: JackStraw at August 25, 2006 02:37 PM (rnOZq)

12 There needs to be a size requirement. Say if something that orbits the sun is larger than say the earths moon then it is a planet, if it is smaller than it is something else. Pluto is essentially a comet, with a less ellptical orbit. That is what it is and that is how it should be categorized.

Posted by: jones at August 25, 2006 02:46 PM (lJUwT)

13 "Some writer on NRO was happy about returning the Solar System to the "traditional eight."

Reminds me of that Simpsons episode where Lisa notices that Grandpa's flag only has 49 stars and he explains "I'll be dead in the cold, hard ground before I recognize Mizzoura!"

Posted by: Blacksheep at August 25, 2006 02:49 PM (kVUW4)

14 Younger generation my arse....
Have NONE of you bloggers or commenters heard of the nearly mythic search started by Percival Lowell and completed by Clyde Tombaugh to FIND the 9th planet? My late daddy was but a gleam in my grandpa's eye when all this was going on. Sheesh, I'd think that if you're gonna go on and on about de-listing the little fella from among the planets, you might at least recall what got Pluto listed in the first place.....
http://pluto.jhuapl.edu/science/everything_pluto/2_discovery_pluto.html

Posted by: Austin Mike at August 25, 2006 03:00 PM (X2/XB)

15 After that quality take-down, I am left wondering...Why was the only planet that was discovered BY AN AMERICAN deplanetized (that is a wierd word but I am leaving it!).

Just a thought.

Posted by: y7 at August 25, 2006 03:04 PM (fvNsg)

16 On a related note, if polar bears shwanz's get any smaller they are going to be reclassified as white guys.

Posted by: JackStraw at August 25, 2006 03:09 PM (rnOZq)

17
Pluto will be back. You wait. You'll see. Gonna be some cryin' too.

Posted by: eman at August 25, 2006 03:35 PM (SD4ZE)

18 Pluto has been chatting up the Alpha Centauri system, talking about how Sol doesn't appreciate her. What a sketchy tease.

Posted by: sandy burger at August 25, 2006 03:44 PM (Cpse7)

19 I always learned the planets as "8 or 9 depending on who you talk to." Just leave it as is , its easier. If there is some planet thing thats worthy of being recognized, give it a nickname that people can remember, not Orbital Object Designation ADh12106-A019823-D6 or some sciency shitbabble like that.

Posted by: Sinistar at August 25, 2006 03:44 PM (J/Saw)

20 Bunch of young'ns. I remember when Ceres was considered a planet and then they took that from us. Downgraded it to asteroid. Now, to placate us in the Ceres is a planet crowd, they upgrade it to dwarf planet. What kind of crap is that. Return it to full planet status or sod off. Wankers!

Posted by: DSkinner at August 25, 2006 03:47 PM (Z887G)

>When Gustav Holst wrote The Planets before WWI, he only included the original 8, there is no Pluto in his work.

That's because his symphony predates the discovery of Pluto in 1930.

Count me among the pro-Plutonians. Pluto is like the comma at the end of the sentence when naming the planets. Pluto is the only planet with a goofy Disney name ( I don't know which came first- Pluto or Pluto.) Pluto is probably the biggest snowball EVER.

FREE PLUTO.

Posted by: Barry at August 25, 2006 04:00 PM (kKjaJ)

22 I blame the powerful Neptune lobby.

I heard they formed a 527 and went negative on Pluto early on. Apparently, it was a loophole in the campaign finance laws.

The problem with a geek smackdown is that they insult each other by questioning the other's interpretation of Newtonian Physics and shit like that. There ain't gonna be no bloodshed.

Posted by: Steve L. at August 25, 2006 04:01 PM (YIFeG)

23 I have Pluto Derangement Syndrome and I'm not ashamed to admit it.

I do too, goddammit. I'm just a pathetically lazy blogger so I just bitch in other blogs' comments about it.

It's a conspiracy! Evil NWO Planetists!

Posted by: Beth at August 25, 2006 04:04 PM (yqiXY)

24 Folks, Alan Stern quoted in the main story is head of a U.S Government funded mission to Pluto that took a lot of lobbying to get funded back in the late 1990s and early 2000s. The question of whether Pluto is a "planet" was a live issue back then. If Pluto's prestigious "planet" label had been stripped from it back then, it would have been a whole lot harder to get Congress to fund the mission. The main way the mission was sold to Congress was that Pluto was the only "planet" our space probes had not yet visited (the Voyagers and the Pioneers did not flyby Pluto). Now that the mission has been funded and launched, it's safe for the scientific community to de-prestige Pluto. But Stern has to keep on with the same line ("Yes, Virginia, Pluto really is a planet") he and every over planetary scientist relied on to get Congress to appropriate the millions for the space probe. After the appropriation, NASA held a contract competition for the project, and Stern's group won the main contract. Lots of other guys lost out. (And by the way, a Maryland outfit got a big chuck of the contract, and a Maryland senator just happens to sit on the key Senate science committee). I wouldn't be at all surprised if some of those who lost out in the contract competiton are among the scientists who now are saying that Pluto is not a planet -- a little bit of sticking it to Stern. But the real joke's on us taxpayers -- Congress thought it was funding a planetary mission, now we discover we're spending millions to go look at a glorified asteroid.

Posted by: Edward Sisson at August 25, 2006 04:25 PM (cWVui)

25 Uranist.

Posted by: Entropy at August 25, 2006 04:42 PM (Uh5fR)

26 They can have Pluto, when they pry it out of my cold dead hand!

Posted by: Mr Minority at August 25, 2006 05:58 PM (d9Vel)

27 One part of a good definition might include requiring that all planets be on the same orbital plane. Pluto is nowhere near being part of the orbital plane occupied by the eight planets, which is the main reason I support the decision to downgrade it.

Posted by: Mrs. Peel at August 25, 2006 06:09 PM (87KU0)

28 I am also a Plutonist, and will not be labeled as suffering from "Pluto Derangement Syndrome". BDS sufferers do not wish Bush well.

It's the stupid astronomers that suffer from PDS. The PDS crowd must have won their midterm elections, held their Pluto impeachment hearings, and removed it from office. That's what happens when the friggin' moonbats get in power.

I think those bastards should just MoveOn.

Posted by: pbrown at August 25, 2006 06:18 PM (7b6pT)

29 Yeah. Pluto. Great. I beg of you all to at least try to entertain me, tonight. I don't want to spend another Friday night tormenting stoopid strippers on stripperweb.c*m.

Posted by: Bart at August 25, 2006 08:02 PM (y79KI)

30 And was any consideration given to the astrologers before banning our friend Pluto? I think not.

Posted by: Unruly Human at August 25, 2006 08:16 PM (/kK5t)

31 So what do they have to hide on pluto is there something dirty going on there they dont want us to know?

Posted by: spurwing plover at August 25, 2006 08:21 PM (/4Knp)

Do I really need to link to the old school Brunching Shuttlecocks pieces A Brief Conversation with the Planet Pluto and Another Brief Conversation with the Planet Pluto? Why, yes, I suppose I do. Read their other stuff too, it was what was funny in the late 1990s-early 2000s. Much like Ace's stuff.

Posted by: jhc at August 25, 2006 09:00 PM (+lA9g)

33 It doesn't matter if planet has an exact or logically definition. Very few words do, even in the sciences. This whole flap is just a comedy. The IAU recognizes eight planets, others argue for nine, some for twelve.

How many continents are there? How do you define one? Why not Greenland and Borneo? Why are Europe and Asia two continents? Why is Arabia not a continent? Is Arabia in Africa or in Asia?

Academics who waste time on such stuff should have their pay reduced steadily until they decide it doesn't matter.

Posted by: K at August 25, 2006 11:02 PM (LIGtI)

34 "Some writer on NRO was happy about returning the Solar System to the "traditional eight."

Damn kids, get off my lawn!

Posted by: Xoxotl at August 25, 2006 11:31 PM (qUG21)

35 If the astronomers want to do something useful, they can think of a less-embarrassing name for Uranus. As for me, I couldn't find Uranus with both hands.

Posted by: dchamil at August 26, 2006 01:13 AM (QPk6r)

36 Adding a follow-on to my post above, about how the funding for the Pluto probe depended on selling Congress on the need to send a probe to the last "planet" not yet visited by our spacecraft: here is how the game is working. The "labeling" word-games matter because the labels are important to persuading Congress to fund scientific exploration. To get the Pluto mission funded, Pluto's status as a planet was vital. But it isn't really a planet because it is much too small, among other things, and as a poster above noted, there are a bunch of other objects out there like Pluto that, if Pluto is a planet, they should also be called planets.

But the public is not going to accept a bunch of these little objects as "new" planets, so they can't be defined as planets. So now that the Pluto probe is funded and launched, how will we get Congress to fund future space exploration missions? Well, if we re-define Pluto now as a kind of "dwarf planet" or glorified asteroid, the current mission gets re-defined, not as the last mission to the planets, but as the first mission to one of these new kinds of objects. The current mission becomes a precedent that these kinds of objects are worthy of expensive exploration missions. So it will not be all that long before we start seeing lists of these new objects, and a new label defining their class, and then proposals to send an exploration mission to a second one of these objects, citing the precedent of the current Pluto mission.

Moreover, by establishing that Pluto is one of a class of objects worthy of an expensive exploration mission, it also strengthens the case that these objects are legitimate and important objects for planetary scientists to devote their careers. I happen to agree that these objects are worthy of study, and I'm happy to see more space missions to them in the future, and I don't think Pluto is a planet, but it is the sociology and economics of the science world that determined why the science community chose to conduct a "vote" on Pluto at this time, and determined the outcome of that "vote."

Posted by: Edward Sisson at August 26, 2006 10:24 AM (cWVui)

37 My sister tells me there's a new mnemonic for the change:
My Very Educated Mother Just Said "Uh-oh -- no Pluto!"

Posted by: leucanthemum b at August 26, 2006 02:44 PM (KQvHr)

38 Well, I say that we put it to a vote, because science is all about the consensus. If Ace would be so good as to put up the poll . . .

Posted by: Dan Collins at August 26, 2006 02:57 PM (SDhNB)

39 Ah, Uranus. It doesn't come up in conversations much, but when it does, you face the difficult decision of how to pronounce it.

There's the low-brow "your anus". Then there's the standard "urine us". And there's the old-school (but pretentious) original(ish) Latin "oo rah noose".

Which do you use? Bear in mind that your decision says a lot about you as a person, so choose wisely. One false step and you could end up as a social pariah.

Posted by: sandy burger at August 26, 2006 02:59 PM (ooJqp)

40 Mrs Peel, you're a goddess.

Pluto's orbit is out of the plane of the elliptic, unlike the 8 "real" planets. It is a temporary visitor, sucked in by the sun's gravity some time after the formation of the solar system, in a cometary orbit, and will by flying out of the solar system in some billion years. I don't know if the sun goes kerplooey before then or not.

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