WattMag: Spooky November Issue

Once Upon a Planet

Title: Once Upon a Planet

Topic: Pluto

Written by: forfatter

“For all the attempts to restrict, suppress, and muffle me, it will be difficult to make me disappear from the public memory completely.” –Napoleon Bonaparte

Once upon a time there were nine planets in our solar system: Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune and Pluto. Then everything change in 2006 when the IAU (International Astronomical Union) change the definition of “planet”. The definition now says: must be in orbit around the sun, must be massive enough to be a sphere by its own gravitational force and must have cleared the neighborhood around its orbit. Pluto does not qualify to the third definition because there are other bodies of comparable size under its gravitational influence. Hence, it is now classified as a dwarf planet, an object the size of a planet but neither as a planet or a moon, joining Eris and Ceres.

Pluto was discovered in February 18, 1930 by astronomer Clyde Tombaugh. At first it was known as “Planet X” until an eleven-year-old girl from Oxford, England Venetia Burney suggested the name Pluto, after the Roman god of the underworld, to her grandfather, who knew the astronomers who were trying to name it.

Pluto, the smallest planet of the solar system back then, has the diameter of 1,485 miles. It is 3.6 billion miles away from the sun. The surface is made of rock and frozen gases and has the temperature of -3690F. It has three moons. It revolves around the sun for 247.7 years and one day in Earth is equivalent to six days.

Reception to the IAU decision was mixed. There are protests; some sought to overturn the decision with online petitions. There are others who denounced the IAU for “scientific heresy” and asserted that Pluto was “unfairly downgraded to a dwarf planet”.

In 2006, because of the great emotional reaction of the public to the demotion of Pluto, the American Dialect Society voted plutoed as the word of the year. It means “demote or devalue someone or something”.

There are still scientific debates if Pluto is a planet or not. In September 18, 2014, Harvard-Smithsonian Astrophysics revisited the question “what is a planet?” After an hour long debate, the audience at the debate was allowed to vote for which definition of a planet sounded best to them. They preferred 'the smallest spherical lump of matter that formed around stars or stellar remnants,'

Of course, this is not an official new definition, but those who have always backed the littlest planet may very well see it as a sign that Pluto will soon be invited back into our planetary family.

In 2015, the debate over Pluto's designation will likely rage on, as New Horizons, the first ever spacecraft to be sent to Pluto, arrives at the planet in July. Maybe in that time the puny planet will regain its planetary status.

It is sad to imagine getting plutoed to a particular group just because you’re different among them not considering what you can do. Don’t lose hope because there are others who are ready to defend you and who are willing to accept you.

We might not see Pluto in the night sky but we will always remember the little planet because it left a mark in our minds that once upon a time there were nine planets in our solar system.

For me I will always remember the planetary mnemonics taught by my grade five science teacher who is kind to me: My Very Educated Mother Just Served Us Nine Pizzas.

Source: Wikepedia, World Almanac and usatoday.com