Patellin' you about Planets II

In the end of my last post about Mike Brown, I highlighted the scientific and linguistic discussion over the word "continent." There are actually many similarities between the debate over the definition of "continent" and of "planet." To quote Mike Brown:

When people describe their neighborhoods, the landmarks to specify the points and they don't care about the scientific meaning of the words they're using; they care about recognizable landmarks to specify the points and the boundaries of their lives. The planets are these landmarks. That is what people mean when they say the word planet.

There is little need to provoke an extended debate over the definition of "continent" in the scientific community as the social implications are more applicable than its scientific meaning. Mike Brown does care about the scientific meaning of planet. Maybe his background will highlight this fascination: he was grew up in Huntsville, Alabama, "a thoroughly, dedicated rocket town. The father of everyone [he] knew - [his] included - was some sort of engineer working to build the Apollo rockets to send men to the moon. For a while as a child, I thought that when you grew up you became a rocket engineer if you were a boy and you married a rocket engineer if you were a girl; few other options in the world appeared to exist." Since childhood, he had always been involved with astronomy to a degree. His first passion was the moon. We learn later on his career that the moon becomes his "enemy" in a way because on nights of partial or full moons, the other celestial objects would seem relatively dim to the telescopes. Would you be able to see stars with a giant lamp post in the sky?  But I regress. Why did Mike Brown have the right to title his book "How I Killed Pluto"?

Because he discovered the tenth planet! Planet X, then temporarily called Xena ,was officially classified as Eris - the goddess of strife and discord -  for all that happened surrounding its discovery. At the time (2005), many objects from the Kiuper belt area in the solar system had already been discovered (mostly by his team) at an extraordinary pace.  The Kiuper belt is similar to the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter but it's located just past Neptune. The word "planet" had become a subject of controversial debate when the media and the International Astronomical Union (IAU) learned of planet X's discovery. The question at the time wasn't whether X was indeed a planet as many of the astronomical governing boards and ALL the media had declared but what would happen next. Planet X was found the be even larger than Pluto but at a distance of 96.6 AU - three times as far as Pluto! If you look at the image above of Eris (and read how planets and other bodies were discovered in the previous entry) you can picture the meticulous effort that is invested in order to find these distant astronomical objects - and how incredible Pluto's discovery in 1930 must have been. It was apparent, though, that with the increase in technology, other objects of comparable magnitude were bound to be discovered somewhere between or a bit farther. One lead official with the IAU had told Mike Brown that based on the currently lenient requirements, hundreds of objects could soon by classified the same way.

However, sensationalist media had no idea of these implications - they were fascinated by Mike Brown: the only living discover of a planet! A legend not only in astronomy but also in every academic field.  Although Brown was a guest on Good Morning America with Diane Sawyer and had articles in every major newspaper, he knew all long what the right move was. Brown took the higher ground for the sake of the scientific community by putting his discovery in its proper place (classification). Members of the IAU had spent months debated over the definition of a planet throughout the time frame of Brown's discoveries (2002-2005). Brown organized a  live streaming in CA where he narrated the IAU conference being held in Europe (forgot the country) to hundreds of media members, academic leaders, and curious bystanders. After the decision was voted upon that Pluto was not a planet and was to be officially classified as a "dwarf planet" along with two other objects discovered by Brown, he was finally at ease. Those who did not understand the situation were justifiably outraged. Teachers, parents, even children began sending angry emails to Brown asking "Why did you have to kill Pluto? What did Pluto ever do to YOU?" I cannot possibly do justice to the response Brown published in his book so I took the time to type up the three pages in the book. The quote and my comments deserve its own entry so scroll up and read his own explanation.