Well it's all over the news, today poor little Pluto has been demoted to "Dwarf Planet" status by the International Astronomical Union. I didn't vote for them, but apparently they have the power to make this decision.
I must say I feel a bit saddened by this. Pluto holds a historical significance that can never be taken away. Clyde Tombaugh's discovery was the result of a passionate effort and certainly was one of the more famous astronomical endeavors by a starry-eyed young astronomer as well as a professional observatory. Why it should be stolen away by some ivory tower academics 76 years later is a mystery to me. Does anyone really care that Pluto is called a planet?
Tonight I'll listen to one of my favorite episodes of the old-time radio show X-Minus One, called Hallucination Orbit, by J.T. MacIntosh. The show is about an outpost on the planet Pluto, and the psychological effects on the lone person stationed there (he suffers from "solitosis"). The show is of course unrealistic, although in the 1950's it may have seemed a bit more plausible to science fiction readers. But listening to this program helps me think about the extreme coldness on this lonely little planet.
By the way this story was the basis for an anthology of twelve stories by Isaac Asimov titled "Hallucination Orbit: Psychology in Science Fiction". The Golden Age of Science Fiction is long gone, and today's announcement seems to me like another little nail in the coffin, blocking out the imagination and sense of wonder that often provides the basis for science enthusiasm in the first place. How ironic.
Oh well progress is progress I guess. In the meantime, here is a picture I took of Pluto when it was still a planet, in the early morning hours on May 20, 2006. Pluto was close to the Sagittarius star clouds at the time. I had planned to take several nights of data to make a movie of it moving, but didn?? t get a chance to get back out. So instead I have used the PinPoint astrometrical engine to identify the planet in this field.
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