"When I Was Your Age Pluto Was a Planet"

Last week my husband brought me a "Pluto- Never Forget" shirt from Y-Que in LA. It got me thinking- what is going on with Pluto?

I went out on a Pluto fact finding mission...
1. Pluto was demoted in August of 2006 on the last day of the International Astronomical Union meeting
2. Only ~428 of the 10,000 members were on hand to vote on the new definition of a planet (~4%)
3. Prominent astronomers quickly launched a petition saying, "We as planetary scientists and astronomers do not agree with the IAU's definition of a planet, nor will we use it. A better definition is needed." Over 300 astronomers and scientists signed it within five days.
4. NASA's Principal Investigator for the New Horizons mission to Pluto (arriving in 2015), Alan Stern, said of the process used to create the new definition "it's sloppy science and it would never pass peer review"
5. The IAU meets every three years, thus the next opportunity for them to revisit the issue won't be until 2009

6. Mark Sykes of the Planetary Science Institute is
organizing a conference in May 2008 call the Great Planet Debate to look at the issue critically and scientifically
7. Hayden Planetarium had already demoted Pluto in their exhibits even before the ruling, other museums and textbooks are being re-done now.
8. The "When I was your age, Pluto was a planet" group on Facebook has over a million members and is one the 3rd or 4th largest groups on the site.

There has been a lot of cultural and public reaction for Pluto
("Pluto-huggers"), and a lot of heated feelings against it
("Pluto-haters"). All the commotion raises an interesting point: where is the science?

Professor Gingerich, who was running the planet definition vote at the IAU conference, said:

"In our initial proposal we took the definition of a planet that the planetary geologists would like. The dynamicists felt terribly insulted that we had not consulted with them to get their views. Somehow, there were enough of them to raise a big hue and cry," Professor Gingerich said.

"Their revolt raised enough of a fuss to destroy the scientific integrity and subtlety of the [earlier] resolution."

Although I am a self-confessed Pluto-hugger and sentimentalist (and member of the Facebook group), I also have a deep interest in maintaining the integrity of science and of our use of science. Once we have bent science to fit our wishes we will no longer have an objective process to use.

As Dr. Mark Sykes put it, "is science about getting your truth from an authoritative institution speaking ex cathedra from its belly button?"

"Science is a process, it's about finding what works, what explains things, what is useful," he went on. Sykes is one of the people hosting the conference in May 2008 that will give scientists the space to talk through all the data, the models, the options and to come up with a definition that is useful, that works and that fits the dynamicists needs as well as the geophysicists.

And if Pluto doesn't win its way back into the planet column? At least I'll have a way to explain it scientifically and know that I have the well thought out work of the whole astronomical community behind it. Besides I can always tell kids that the really interesting thing is working out the details of the 250+ extra solar planets out there that we have never send a spacecraft to go study.

Maybe the debate could help demonstrate that science is not facts memorized out of a book, it's a process for distilling new facts out of the universe- and that most of them are still out there waiting to be found.

Images: Cool Flickr user, me
Pluto vote "hijacked" in revolt [BBC]
Saving Pluto: the fight back begins [Cosmos]

See Also:

• Dwarf Planet Eris Proven to be More