Illinois Senate nudges Pluto back to its proper orbit
Pluto
SPRINGFIELD, Ill. - The Illinois Senate, by a unanimous vote, has just granted “full planetary status” to Pluto (the permanently frozen deep-space object, not the cartoon dog).
Turns out the guy who discovered Pluto in 1930, astronomer Clyde Tombaugh, was born in Streator, Ill. His discovery was called a “planet” for about 75 years. But it was recently reclassified (“unfairly downgraded,” in the words of todays’ Illinois Senate Resolution 46) to a “dwarf planet,” after ex-Gov. Rod Blagojevich tried to auction it off.
(Kidding. The International Astronomical Union, a global organization of scientists, reclassified the planet because of its relatively small size, its elliptical orbit, and some other factors.)
Anyway, the Illinois Senate, which clearly knows more about galaxic issues than does the International Astronomical Union, is calling for Pluto’s restoration to its proper status in the heavens, and has designated March 13 as “Pluto Day.”
Celebrate with a drink - something on ice.
The Illinois Senate has way more sense than the International Astronomical Union has shown in two-and-a-half years. It’s the IAU who have acted like idiots, with one tiny group forcing a nonsensical planet definition on everyone. The truth is there is NO scientific consensus that Pluto is not a planet. The criterion requiring that a planet “clear the neighborhood of its orbit” is not only controversial; it’s so vague as to be meaningless. Only four percent of the IAU even voted on this, and the vote was driven by internal politics. A small group, most of whom are not planetary scientists, wanted to arbitrarily limit the number of planets to only the largest bodies in the solar system. They held their vote on the last day of a two-week conference with no absentee voting allowed. Their decision was immediately opposed by hundreds of professional astronomers in a formal petition led by Dr. Alan Stern, Principal Investigator of NASA’s New Horizons mission to Pluto.
Stern and like-minded scientists favor a broader definition of planet that includes any non-self-luminous spheroidal body orbiting a star. The spherical part is key because when objects become large enough, they are shaped by gravity, which pulls them into a round shape, rather than by chemical bonds. This is true of planets and not of shapeless asteroids and comets. And yes, it does make Ceres, Eris, Haumea, and Makemake planets as well, for a total of 13 planets in our solar system.
Even now, many astronomers and lay people are working to overturn the IAU demotion or are ignoring it altogether. Kudos to the Illinois Senate for standing up to this closed, out of touch organization whose leadership thinks they can just issue a decree and change reality.
Well this pushes Illinois ahead of Mississippi as most idiotic state in the nation… good work guys.