I want to get my mind off the distressing situation with NASA and the lack of public and
government will and imagination for a bit and focus on something else regarding space that is
remote both literally and in terms of immediate huiman issues for a bit, thus this news item
(and humorous cartoon)....

Friday, August 14, 2009

Pluto fizzled at IAU's Rio meeting

The IAU's Rio meeting never discussed the sensitive issue of Pluto's status.

"Pluto still not a planet after astronomy meeting"

by Dan Vergano

August 13, 2009

USA Today

An international astronomy meeting ended Thursday in Rio de Janeiro, and Pluto is still not a planet. The closing ceremonies of the 2009 International Astronomical Union (IAU) concluded with nary a peep about the planetary brouhaha that saw walk-outs and table-banging three years ago at the venerable astronomer's assembly, in Prague.

"None of that stuff at all came up," said IAU spokesman Lars Lindberg Christensen, speaking from a taxi speeding away from the meeting for one of Rio's restaurants. "I believe people still disagree, but the focus was really on science at the meeting."

In 2006, the IAU meeting assembly demoted Pluto into a "dwarf planet" (sometimes called a "plutoid") because it has failed to have "cleared the neighborhood around its orbit," in the words of the assembly's resolution. Pluto only weighs 0.07 as much as the rest of the objects in its orbit, which includes "Kuiper Belt" comets and Neptune, an ice giant planet. Earth, in contrast, weighs 1.7 million times more than the remaining objects in its orbit, asteroids and the moon, making it a planet, according to the just-released Pluto Confidential: An Insider Account of the Ongoing Battles Over the Status of Pluto, by astronomers Steve Maran and Laurence Marschall.

The two authors split on whether Pluto is a planet, with Maran arguing for the demoted world. "Pluto is still the people's planet and, if anything, more popular as an underdog than ever before," Maran writes.

Full article (and cartoon) here:

http://philosophyofscienceportal.blogspot.com/2009/08/pluto-fizzled-at-iaus-rion-meeting.html

Pluto is "the people's planet"? Uh oh, maybe socialism is rising in America.

Clearly "the people" don't quite realize what and where Pluto is exactly, otherwise they would
probably prefer something much bigger and prettier, like Saturn.