Thursday, August 24, 2006
Pluto Demoted! Mickey Outraged!
Well, I must say I’m a little bummed by Pluto’s demotion from a regular planet to a “dwarf planet.”
Though I've never seen it, I liked that it was discovered by a man named Clyde [Tombaugh]. That he was working at a private observatory funded by a rich astronomical wacko (Percival Lowell, who really really believed in life on Mars, thereby putting momentum behind The War of the Worlds which, Tom Cruise notwithstanding, is a pretty good story.)
But I can see the dilemma the astronomers faced: let Pluto in and there’s no good way to keep a host of truly lame orbiting bodies from getting promoted to planets.
Though I've never seen it, I liked that it was discovered by a man named Clyde [Tombaugh]. That he was working at a private observatory funded by a rich astronomical wacko (Percival Lowell, who really really believed in life on Mars, thereby putting momentum behind The War of the Worlds which, Tom Cruise notwithstanding, is a pretty good story.)
But I can see the dilemma the astronomers faced: let Pluto in and there’s no good way to keep a host of truly lame orbiting bodies from getting promoted to planets.
