June 1 -14, 2015
“It says something very deep about humans and our society, something very good about us, that we’ve invested our time and treasure in building a machine that can fly across three billion miles of space to explore the Pluto system…..” Alan Stern, Astronomer and Aeronautical Engineer quoted in Smithsonian, June 2015
The rudimentary geography of our solar system seemed to be altered in August 2006 when the International Astronomical Union (IAU) voted to change Pluto’s designation from planet to dwarf planet. Pluto is still there, the actual order of our solar system hasn’t changed, but the long established nine-planet world is no more. It might be that since February 1930, when Pluto was discovered, English speakers had practiced the line-up of the planets in relation to the sun by the phrase “My Very Excellent Mother Just Served Us Nine Pies” (Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune, Pluto). The current version could be “My Very Excellent Mother Just Served Us Noodles.” Or, as other norms are shifting, the whole phrase might need an overhaul.
Far from being marginalized, Pluto is the object of pioneering astronomical research. It is indeed ironic that the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) had launched New Horizons, the study vehicle headed for Pluto, on January 19, 2006 – half a year before the IAU handed down the new designation. New Horizons was 16 years from proposal to launch, the final 4 years in production. Astronomer and aeronautical engineer Alan Stern is mission leader.
Nearly a decade of rocketing at up to 47,000 miles an hour, the New Horizons spacecraft, the fastest object to leave Earth, is approaching Pluto, to arrive at closest range on July 14. In the days before, during and after closest approach New Horizons will conduct a schedule of phenomenal, marathon-paced research initiatives.
Pluto was discovered by Clyde W. Trombaugh, a dedicated astronomer with no college education, at the Lowell Observatory in Flagstaff, Arizona just 85 years ago. It is a 14th magnitude celestial object in a magnitude system that ranks the brightest stars visible from Earth as 1st magnitude (m). Sixth magnitude is the dimmest object visible without a telescope.
Pluto, smaller than Earth’s moon, is located beyond Neptune in the Kuiper belt, identified as the probable region from which many comets originate. The first object other than Pluto and its moon Charon was discovered in this region in 1992, and more have been observed since. These observations confirmed the existence of the formerly hypothesized Kuiper belt and added more planet-like objects beyond Neptune. The IAU defines a planet as a celestial body that orbits around the sun, has enough mass to be round and has “cleared the neighborhood” around its orbit. Apparently, Pluto falls short on the last count and has a wildly eccentric orbit. Controversy still rages about “demoting” what was once our solar system’s outermost planet.
An 11-year-old British girl, Venetia Burney, suggested, rather profoundly, the name Pluto, the Roman god of the underworld, because it is in darkness, faraway and most often invisible. Lowell Observatory accepted the suggestion, especially excited that PL are the initials of the observatory founder and trans-Neptunian researcher, the astronomer Percival Lowell.
Resources:
https://www.nasa.gov/feature/nasa-s-new-horizons-sees-more-detail-as-it-draws-closer-to-pluto
To participate virtually in the progress of NASA’s historic New Horizons flyby mission to Pluto download Simulation Curriculum’s free interactive exploration app, Pluto Safari for iOS and Android. Go to www.plutosafari.com
https://documentary.net/video/naming-pluto/
https://www.documentaryfilmonline.com/film-reviews/naming-pluto/
https://www.imdb.com/video/wab/vi2442331161
Mike Brown, How I Killed Pluto and Why It Had It Coming. Spiegel and Grau, 2010
