Astronomy Dilemma: Why Wasn’t Pluto Good Enough for the Universe?
31 July 2007Astronomy has always been fascinating to most people as it was the entity that would tell us about stars and suns, planets and orbits, making us feel very proud in the virtually unlimited universe. But this domain has been lately severely shaken by an earthquake, when the International Astronomical Union decided to cut Pluto down from the Solar System’s planet list. Now why would astronomy do such a thing? What did such a tiny planet do to offend the “high authorities”?
The sad thing about this entire situation is that the decision was not unanimous, in fact not even 5% of world’s astronomers voted. Apparently, it was all an astronomy dilemma, a sort of spin and toss choice and not a large-scale judgment. Bowling out Pluto was the result of rethinking and redefining planethood, which showed that this ninth planet’s small dimensions were not good enough as compared to the other ones.
Having lived only 76 years, Pluto was to astronomy the smallest planet in the Solar System and the only one that has remained unvisited in spacecraft. (Could it be that those who stood for the astronomy decision were envious for not having managed to se foot of it?) Since it was also the farthest planet from the Sun, its composition included mostly rock and ice, being, this way, basically impenetrable.
Aside from being special - it was never like the other planets, neither known, nor lived- Pluto was also the one after whom the famous cartoon character was named. And trust me, nobody would like having their children give up the Looney tunes playful dog, just as most astronomers didn’t like having to say good-bye to a new piece of space. With this unwanted separation astronomy committed the Solar System just got poorer. We’re waiting anxiously to see who will take Pluto’s place.
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