2 years ago
Tuesday, September 22, 2015
Monday, August 24, 2015
Nine Years Later, the Ninth Planet Lives!
Nine has been a recurring number throughout this Year of Pluto. Ironically, this day marks yet another significant ninth—the ninth anniversary of the controversial IAU planet definition and wrongful exclusion of Pluto from the roster of planets.
That
decision can be compared to studies of climate change commissioned by oil
companies. The scientists doing the study know the hand that feeds them, which
is why they decide on the conclusion they want first, then make the study fit
the result they favor.
A
majority of the 424 IAU members who voted that day first decided they wanted
Pluto out, then concocted a definition that gave them their desired results.
A
year ago on this day, I ended my blog entry with the following sentence: “Next
August 24, we will have the most clear idea yet of just how alive a planet one
astronomer prematurely wrote off as dead is.”
And
we do.
Only
five percent of the data taken by New Horizons’ seven instruments at the Pluto
system in one day has been returned, but it is enough to confirm that planet
Pluto is very much alive. Geologically, its lack of craters points to a world
that is constantly being resurfaced, a world with some type of internal heat
source, possible cryovolcanism, and maybe even a subsurface ocean.
Pluto’s
active geology has stumped scientists who previously thought such activity is
generated by tidal forces from a nearby giant planet. That is the case for
large moons of the solar system’s gas giants. But Pluto and Charon have no
nearby gas giant, so tidal forces cannot account for its geological activity.
Most
scientists expected to find a dead rock so far away from the Sun and from any
gas or ice giants. But Pluto is more geologically active than Mars, and even
Charon shows evidence of geological activity.
On a
human level, Pluto, with its prominent bright heart, has captured the hearts of
people worldwide in a way they will not likely soon forget. It is one thing for
us to love Pluto. It is a completely different thing when Pluto, in its most
prominent image, appears to be sending a love note to us.
And
yet, another IAU General Assembly has come and gone with hardly an
acknowledgement of the amazing feat of humanity sending a probe to Pluto and
the amazing world that probe revealed.
The
only mention of New Horizons at the General Assembly was an article chastising
the mission team for naming features on Pluto and Charon with names that may
not be approved by the IAU, leaving fans bitterly disappointed!
A
decade ago, the discovery of Eris presented new information that warranted
opening the discussion of what is a planet, but the findings at Pluto are far
more encompassing in telling us about these small outer worlds—and yet, no one
at the General Assembly found a need to re-open this discussion.
Beyond
the IAU leadership, this summer has seen a plethora of articles published on
various websites repeating the same old IAU definition along with the caveat
that Pluto is not a planet because “there is a third requirement of clearing
its orbit that Pluto does not meet.”
A
certain astronomer who believes he “killed” Pluto, and his followers, are
giving interviews and talks emphasizing that although this little world is
fascinating, it is still “dead” as a planet.
Nowhere
less than at the flyby celebration itself, a few media people likely acting for
this particular astronomer spent hours on Twitter tweeting about how Pluto is
dead, even accusing those of us who advocate its planet status of trying to “ruin
the flyby.”
The only way someone could have “ruined the flyby” would have been for them to fling debris directly at the rapidly flying spacecraft!
A
writer for the Planetary Society posted an image with the Society’s logo of the
“Non-planets visited by a spacecraft” that prominently featured Pluto—directly from
the mission headquarters on the very day of the flyby.
What
is going on here? To me, it seems obvious. Supporters of Pluto’s demotion keep
repeating their positions online because they know the flyby data will reveal just
how much of a planet Pluto is.
The “I
killed Pluto” astronomer claims that advocates of a geophysical planet
definition have simply “gotten louder, that no one has changed their minds on
the issue.” Yet the reality is just the opposite—opponents of Pluto’s planet
status are the ones who have gotten louder because the data is not working in
their favor.
NASA
Administrator Charles Bolden openly said he considers Pluto a planet.
Dr.
Daniel Brown, a British astronomer at Nottingham Trent University, said of
Pluto, on the day of the flyby, “Maybe we need to reconsider its status again.”
A
third requirement of orbit clearing? That constitutes circular reasoning, much
like arguments that claim the Earth is 6,000 years old because the Bible says
so. Just because an individual or group or book says something does not make
that thing true. This type of argument is called “appeal to authority” and is
known as a logical fallacy.
Some
people approached the flyby by setting a false dichotomy, arguing that focus on
Pluto’s status somehow detracts from focus on the science New Horizons is
doing.
To
me, that is a false claim. It is the science that tells us what an object is,
what processes it has undergone, and what it is experiencing now. The science
is what informs the status.
As
Alan Stern says, “It is very difficult to look at an object with this complexity
and NOT call it a planet.”
How
much sense does the IAU definition make when its defenders, such as Victor
Baker of the University of Arizona, make statements such as, "The
classification of Pluto as a dwarf planet is really not based on criteria
affected by the new images. The issue is that there are other planetary objects
in the far outer system that are very similar to Pluto in size and general
character."
In
other words, the actual processes on Pluto’s surface and the features that
reflect those processes have nothing to do with its classification. The only
thing that matters is an inexplicable need to keep the number of solar system
planets small. How far removed is this from, “I’ve made up my mind; don’t
confuse me with the facts?”
Between
now and the end of 2016, New Horizons will be the gift that keeps on giving—more
data, more pictures, more understanding of this fascinating binary planet
system. Those who refuse to adjust their perceptions based on new data are
nothing less than untrue to the scientific method.
Nine
years after a really bad decision was made, it is abundantly clear that that
decision was premature and just plain wrong.
Some
say, who cares; Pluto is what it is regardless of what we call it. But clearly,
many people DO care. Definitions matter because they are the way we make sense
of the world around us.
There
is no better time than now, as we await arrival of the other 95 percent of data
on the Pluto system, to affirm its planet status. As planetary scientist Phil
Metzger notes, “…classifying things in nature is an important part of the
progress of science, and therefore I believe it cannot ever be settled by a
vote. Trying to enforce an opinion through voting is unacceptable to the
scientific community.
However,
the IAU needed to decide on the bookkeeping method it would use for keeping
track of planets, and it had to decide something, so its members took a vote.
That should have never been represented as settling Pluto's planet status. But
mistakes happen all the time in science. We keep learning and we correct our
mistakes. In this case, the bad definition of a planet will be corrected, I
have no doubt.
…We
are free to call it a planet right now. The planetary science community has
never stopped calling bodies like Pluto ‘planets.’
So
start calling Pluto a planet right now. Add to the consensus, because that's
how science makes progress, by one person at a time being convinced of the
truth and adopting it. Science is not decided by votes and you are not required
to submit to nonsense.”
Make
your voice heard! Sign the petition at https://www.change.org/p/international-astronomical-union-declare-pluto-a-planet-plutoflyby
. It doesn’t matter that the Honolulu General Assembly is over. There will be
other General Assemblies, and there are other organizations that can address
this besides the IAU.
Notably,
this petition has 5,534 signatures—in contrast to 333 who voted that dwarf
planets are not planets (to their credit, 91 voted that dwarf planets should be a subclass of planets).
And
make sure to voice your opinion in the Pluto Safari poll at http://app.plutosafari.com/poll.html
. So far, out of 10,013 votes, 73 percent favor Pluto being classed as a
planet. Organizers of the poll note some even changed their minds from “no” to “yes”
during and after the flyby.
It’s
not over for Pluto. It’s just beginning.
https://vimeo.com/136223988
Sunday, August 9, 2015
An Open Letter to the 29th IAU General Assembly
August
9, 2015
Dear
Dr. Montmerle, Members of the IAU Executive Committee, Members of the
Secretariat, Members of the Commission on Public Outreach Information
Management, Commission on New Media, Working Group on Planetary System
Nomenclature, Working Group on Small Bodies Nomenclature, Working Group on the
Public Naming of Planets and Planetary Satellites, Working Group on
International General Assemblies, and Delegates to the 29th IAU
General Assembly,
I am
an amateur astronomer and freelance writer who is writing to respectfully
request the General Assembly officially reopen discussion on the issue of
planet definition for both our solar system and the countless others both
discovered and waiting to be discovered.
Please note that I do not represent any
government, space agency, space mission, company, or print or online
publication in writing this. These views are solely my own and those
shared by like-minded people who have signed petitions stating, “I agree that
Pluto is a planet, and a better definition is needed.”
The
last three years in general and the year 2015 in particular have been a time of
momentous, historic discoveries in planetary science. The Dawn mission’s orbit
of Ceres and the New Horizons flyby of Pluto have stunned the world, not just
with beautiful pictures, but with compelling evidence that these are complex
geological worlds undergoing active internal processes as we speak.
While
much data awaits from both missions, the information we have to date shows that
Ceres and Pluto are far more than spherical worlds. Ceres may have a thin
atmosphere and possibly a subsurface ocean. It could be one of the solar system’s
most active and prominent water worlds.
Pluto’s
lack of craters, its unusual variety of terrains, stunning mountains, and
flowing ices indicate it too is geologically active today and like Ceres, may
harbor a subsurface ocean. Like its larger planet counterparts, it seems to
have an internal heat source. Analysis of the orbital dynamics of the six-body
system (Pluto, Charon, and four small moons) reveals that its four small moons
do not solely orbit Pluto but orbit a barycenter between Pluto and Charon,
making the Pluto system a true binary, with Pluto and Charon acting much the
way stars in a double star system do.
Incredibly,
New Horizons has shown us that Pluto in many ways is more like Earth than
possibly any other solar system world. As NASA associate administrator John
Grunsfeld noted, “With flowing ices, exotic surface chemistry, mountain ranges,
and vast haze, Pluto is showing a diversity of planetary geology that is truly
thrilling.”
The
question of what constitutes a planet is about far more than Pluto. As
astronomer Dr. David Grinspoon pointed out, the current IAU definition
completely excludes exoplanets, of which we have now discovered close to 2,000.
It
makes no sense to have one definition for planets in our solar system and
another or none for the billions that orbit other stars or float freely in
space. Doing this privileges Earth and its parent star in a manner that runs
counter to the Copernican principle.
In
2006, the leadership of the IAU attributed the need to come up with a
definition of the word “planet” to the discovery of Eris and other large Kuiper
Belt Objects. New information frequently compels revisiting and revising our
classification systems. The discoveries of 2015 and of the last three years
once again compel a paradigm shift and revision in our understanding of planets
and planetary systems.
In our own solar system, scientists have been stunned to find that what we thought were dead worlds are much more akin to their larger counterparts, in spite of their size.
In other
solar systems, we have found a diversity of worlds in a huge variety of sizes
and orbits, many in locations and situations previously believed impossible.
These discoveries have often resulted in scientists noting a need to “go back
to the drawing board” to develop a new understanding of planet and solar system
formation.
At
the 2012 GA, the IAU approved electronic voting for members not able to be
physically present at the conference, a step forward I respect and applaud.
Now,
it is time to take the next step, to act with the flexibility and
open-mindedness that represents science at its best. No definition should ever
be final because we constantly learn more, requiring us to revisit concepts we
thought we thoroughly understood.
For these
reasons, I ask specifically that you reconsider and place for a new vote
Resolution 5b from 2006, which would establish “planets” as a broad, umbrella
category under which both classical and dwarf planets would be included and
that the definition of planet be expanded to include objects that orbit a star
or are free-floating in space, to accommodate exoplanets and rogue planets.
Additionally,
I ask that you remove all dwarf planets from the “Minor Planet” category,
remove minor planet numbers given to them, and remove them from the auspices of
the Minor Planet Center. The term “minor planet,” as noted by Dr. David
Weintraub, refers to objects now classed by the IAU as “Small Solar System
Bodies,” in other words, asteroids, comets, and centaurs, objects too small to
be in hydrostatic equilibrium. The newly-revealed complexity of dwarf planets
confirms they do not belong in this category.
I
also ask that you consider classifying complex spherical moons of planets,
which undergo the same processes as the terrestrial planets, as part of a new
category of “satellite planets.”
Continuing
to ignore these new developments will not make them go away and constitutes a
disservice to science. I am sure you are all aware that at a debate last fall
at the Harvard Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, participants, including
scientists, educators, and students, voted overwhelmingly in favor of Pluto
being classified as a planet.
Other
polls, including those of professional astronomers, have shown similar results;
people with strong backgrounds in astronomy and planetary science have
overwhelmingly shown their support for dwarf planets being classed as planets
and for a definition that includes exoplanets.
If
you do not feel ready to put a resolution on the floor of this year’s GA, at
least set in motion a process of establishing a committee to revisit the issue
for the GA in 2018. I urge you to reach out to members of the New Horizons team,
the only people in the world who actually sent a probe to Pluto, as well as to
a broad cross-section of planetary scientists, both amateur and professional,
and even to the public for input.
Now
is an ideal time for such an effort, as the Dawn and New Horizons missions have
generated a revived interest in astronomy and space exploration worldwide.
Failure
to adequately address this issue based on new data will eventually result in
another organization or simply public usage taking it up and adopting a better
planet definition. If the IAU seeks to remain in a leadership role in terms of safeguarding
the science of astronomy, it is time to revisit this issue and allow the time
and deliberation necessary for the development of a genuine consensus, reaching
out to as broad a spectrum of people as possible through digital media.
Sincerely,
Laurel
E. Kornfeld, Highland Park, NJ, USAhttp://laurelsplutoblog.blogspot.com
http://laurele.livejournal.com
Friday, July 31, 2015
Alan Stern: IAU Definition is BS
http://www.techinsider.io/new-horizons-a
So whose definition should we use--that of a self-proclaimed "authority," which issued a definition crafted by those who don't even study planets, or by a team of planetary scientists who actually sent a spacecraft to Pluto?
Friday, July 24, 2015
Wednesday, July 22, 2015
Dr. Gerard van Belle on Pluto Planet Discussion
http://gerardstravelnotes.blogspot.com/2
This is a great read on the weaknesses and problems with the controversial IAU planet definition by Dr. Gerard van Belle of the Lowell Observatory. Please note the views are van Belle's alone; the Lowell Observatory remains officially neutral on this issue.
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