Plutonic Relationships

I heard someone recently report that some astronomers and planetary scientists feel they were not adequately consulted when the decision was made to demote Pluto, and they are protesting the action. Apparently a only a small portion of the 9,000-member International Astronomical Union (IAU) made the decision, and those experts who were not there for the vote are, understandably, a bit miffed.

I have had a similar concern. This decision, to downgrade our solar system from an nine-planet system to an eight-planet assemblage, has far-reaching implications that were not adequately considered, and it affects a lot of people who were not invited to participate in the discussion. Only 424 people voted to change the definition of a planet. Even if all 9,000 astronomers voted, it seems like a paltry number when we have some 6.6 billion human inhabitants in the solar system.

My family, for instance, was not consulted. We are not astronomers or physicists. We don't even own a telescope, and none of us has ever seen Pluto. But the smallest planet in the solar system is, nonetheless, part of our lives. We live on one of the nine (or eight) planets in this solar system, and with so few planets, we feel somewhat attached to each of them. We are residents of this collection of objects swirling around the sun, and it seems we should be consulted in any significant change in the status of that collection. As should all the other residents. Shouldn't we have had an election or something? A public opinion poll, at the least? Shouldn't the people in charge of this decision stood up and asked all 6.6 billion of us on this planet whether we wanted our corner of the galaxy to change?

I, for one, was very happy with having nine planets. I like the number nine, and I was just getting used to the collection of planets that we had. On a recent trip across the wasteland of Nevada (which I, for one, would vote for getting rid of), our family listened repeatedly to a Nick Jr. CD that included a Blue's Clues song about the planets:

The Sun is a hot star,
And Mercury's hot too.
Venus is the brightest planet,
And Earth's home to me and you.

Mars is the red one,
Jupiter's most wide.
Saturn's got those icy rings,
And Uranus spins on its side.

Neptune's really windy,
And Pluto's really small.
We wanted to name the planets,
And now we've named them all.

It's a catchy tune. We all memorized it. For the first time in my life, I could name the planets in order from the Sun outward. I learned that Uranus spins on its side and that Neptune is windy. Who knew? I grew attached to that song and to the nine planets in it.

Then a week later, they got rid of Pluto.

Just like that, our song was obsolete and we had to help Lizzy unlearn the information about Pluto. No, it's not a planet after all. No, the solar system does not have nine planets; it has eight. No, Pluto is not gone. It's still there, but it's not a planet anymore.

Try to explain that to a five-year-old.

Our Blue's Clues song isn't the only thing that became obsolete on Aug. 24. Two dictionaries in our hosehold still define an outdated nine-planet solar system, and a nice educational placemat continues to claim Pluto, still proudly informing us that the smallest, farthest planet has a moon (actually three) when Venus has none. Our big Children's Space Atlas, which Lizzy enjoys studying, is also now full of misinformation about Pluto. I figure the 424 members of the IAU who made this decision owe our family at least $50 for replacement costs on various items that they just made outdated.

Didn't these people consult economists? How about schools? Libraries? Those nonprofit, budget-strapped institutions are going to have quite a time refreshing their collections. The IAU should have at least coordinated with Congress so the government could have passed a special budget appropriation to fund the updating of all the school libraries.

A couple of weeks ago, we checked out a charming little children's book—seemingly harmless from the cover—from our local library. It's a counting book about a kindergartener's first 100 days of school, reporting what the child learns or does with each number for each day. For bedtime recently, Lizzy asked me to read it to her; we read up to number 25. All was going well until we got to number nine, which reported that there are nine planets in the solar system.

Being the diligent father that I am, and not wanting my daughter to be misled by such passé notions of a larger solar system found in unenlightened books in a sub-par library, I quickly made reference to the fact that there are really only eight planets in the solar system—a fact that I thought Lizzy knew quite well. But she seemed puzzled, so I explained again that Pluto used to be a planet, but we've now decided it isn't *really* a planet, even though it's still there, and so we don't really have nine planets like the book says, just eight.

I finished my explanation, and Lizzy said, "That's silly."

Exactly.