Today's the anniversary of the discovery of Pluto. As in the planet. As in-- these days -- the planet NOT. The Un-Planet. But back in 1930 Clyde Tombaugh found Pluto in the skies just past Neptune. And suddenly we had Nine Planets in the Solar System.
I remember in the latter days of the 20th century (like the 90's) our great leader explaining in great detail why Pluto is no longer a planet. He didn't mind bursting our bubble. In fact, he seemed to kinda enjoy it. Like saying there's no Tooth Fairy, no Easter Bunny, no Santa Claus (not a Sanity Clause either).
Before we go into the whys and wherefores you may be wondering just who is our leader? Why it's Neil DeGrasse Tyson, the head of the Hayden Planetarium at the American Museum of Natural History in New York. Not only is he a topnotch top-gun astrophysicist he knows how to tell you about what's up there, too. I took two classes from him. One: Space Science: An Introduction. The other: Astrophysics Roundtable. He'd get up on the auditorium stage and pace about as he spoke, writing things on the board, making diagrams, answering questions, all with such happy passion, it made you think that wallowing in the cosmos all day and night was a lot better than grocery shopping and worrying about the latest crimes and scandals on the news. Imagine always looking at the BIG picture.
I actually understood things like kelvins and energy production formulas and nucleons and inverse time and cosmological constants and equations for thermonuclear fusion. I'm not even a science person. But he made it all clear. Until I left the auditorium. Then it became a jumble in my head and rapidly dissolved into anti-matter. But the time in the class was precious. The whole universe sparkled with clarity.
Why is Neil our leader? (All of his students are supposed to call him simply Neil.) Because when the aliens land and inevitably say: "Take me to your leader," this is the guy we should take them to.
So Neil said there ain't no planet called Pluto. He says Pluto has peculiar written all over it. He says it's a leftover comet. It's too small to be a planet. It's made of a lot of ice. Its orbit isn't planetary like the rest of our planetary planets. Its tipped and not really following our solar system rules. Now it's called a Kuiper belt object (talk about a demotion!).
But, it's cute. And it's terribly hard to give up on an old friend. Especially one named for a cartoon character.
I suppose if we accept the rule-players and stick with the nice neat number of 8 planets, we'll have our solar system all tied up prettily in a bow. But for those of you (I'm not necessarily saying me. Remember I was in Our Leader's class) who are more comfortable with letting the marginalized IN, you can call Pluto to dinner when Jup, Sat, Merc, Mars, Ear, Ura, Nep, and Venus come over. You can let Pluto sit by the fire to warm up. Tell him he's not really an object at all. Except an object of your affection.
