Fresh Fuel for Argument by Astronomers Over Pluto’s Status as a Planet-Part II
Alan Stern, project leader for NASA’s New Horizons mission to Pluto, says the project will not recognize the new IAU definition. “We will continue to refer to Pluto as the ninth planet,” he says on the mission’s website. “I think most of you will agree with that decision and cheer us on.” (following the decision made by the IAU meeting on Aug 16, 2006 in Prague)
********************************************************************************
Those who have been upset by the IAU ruling of Pluto since 2006 are gathering support “for major scientific meetings” which will be devoted entirely to debating the status of Pluto in the solar system. New Scientist reports that following the 2006 IAU meeting, two members of the California state assembly— Keith Richman and Joseph Canciamilla– introduced a “resolution condemning the mean-spirited IAU for its decision on Pluto, calling it a ‘hasty, ill-considered scientific heresy’. “
Hence, developed the “The Great Planet Debate: Science as Process” which is seen as a clean-up of the IAU decision which changed the definition of planets. With top astronomers and planetary scientist, the conference focused on this highly developed controversial question, “What is a planet?” Unhappy over the IAU’s ruling which changed the status of Pluto, more important was that out of 10,000 global astronomers, only 424 made the decision to change the status of what a planet actually was. Not exactly a majority vote, now is it? And when Pluto and other “plutoids” had a name change of dwarf planets to plutoids, it was done behind closed doors.
Many planet scientists were disgruntled over the 2006 IAU decision, which they said involved a vote of just 424 astronomers out of some 10,000 professional astronomers around the globe. The most recent decision, to categorize Pluto and such as plutoids, further ticked off many astronomers, who felt the term was developed behind closed doors. All of this just led fuel to the fire regarding the 2006 decision from now a very “unpopular IAU organization.”
VIEWS OF ASTRONOMERS AND SCIENTISTS
“We’re going to do something that the IAU did not, which is discuss what we know about planetary bodies in the solar system and around other stars, and discuss the value of different ways of defining objects as planets and what that means,” said Mark V. Sykes, director of the Planetary Science Institute in Tucson, Ariz.”If a new consensus emerges it will easily overturn the IAU. This is not an issue,” said Neil deGrasse Tyson, director of the American Museum of Natural History’s Hayden Planetarium in New York. “If not, they’ll stick with what they’ve got until something better comes along.”
“I’m tired,” Tyson said. “I’ve been arguing Pluto for eight years, so it’s another occasion where I’m arguing Pluto. This one happens to be a little more formal in its construct. So I see it as another day of just trying to tell people, teach people about, what we now know about the solar system. When you bring a lot of creative, talented people together new solutions can arise that might not have arisen from any one individual,” he told SPACE.com. “The collaboration, the intersection of ideas, has its own way of creating new understanding.”
This entry was posted on Sunday, August 17th, 2008 at 4:18 am and is filed under Mars News, Mission History, Space Agency News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
