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[Chicago Astronomer - Astro Joe]

Scientists' Tally Of Planets Getting Confusing

CBS TV News/Ch.2

(CBS) CHICAGO Scientists now say we have new neighbors. Forget what you learned about nine planets. Astronomers think they've discovered three new ones.

That news is rocking the world, and universe, of CBS 2's Jon Duncanson.

If scientists have their way, everything you know about your universe may be wrong.

We asked the Adler Planetarium'sLarry Ciupik how there could be 12 planets today, and 8 just a few weeks ago.
“I thought there was nine, actually. But they kicked Pluto out and then they brought Pluto back,” Ciupik said.

Astronomers dropped Pluto from the planet club, then changed their minds and added three more.

We asked one young visitor to the planetarium what she thought of all that. “It’s very confusing,” she said.

Confusing and rattling the foundations of our metaphysical existence.

What are we supposed to make of our special place in the universe if they keep changing the universe we live in?

We asked another visitor if it bothered him that scientists keep changing the planets.

“No. Not in the least. Not really.”

How many planets does Ciupik think they'll end up with? 30? 40? “Well, given this it'll perhaps be more than 50,” Ciupik said.

We asked Northwestern University sociologist Bernard Beck how scientists could keep changing their minds.

“Think of it this way: scientists like everybody else have to make a living. And in science making a living depends on coming up with new results,” Beck said.

So really, we’re just lost in space, with more planet names to memorize.

“Well, I really think you should just grin and enjoy it,” Ciupik said.

Astronomers around the world will vote on Aug. 24 to change the number of planets in our solar system, officially, to 12.

Source: cbs2chicago.com/topstories/local_story_228194945.html

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[Chicago Astronomer - Astro Joe]

Adding Planets Means New Textbooks, Toys

Forbes.com

08.16.2006, 03:12 PM

The idea that our nine-planet solar system may soon join the obsolete world of eight-track tapes and slide rules should send science teachers, textbook writers and toymakers back to the cosmic drawing board.

"Does it make our products obsolete?" asked Kim McLynn, spokeswoman for Illinois-based Learning Resources, which makes an inflatable solar system and a Planet Quest game. "Wow, a whole new universe."

Though not approved yet, the 76-year-old lineup of the solar system's planets would grow to 12 under a proposal by leading astronomers. Their recommendation will be decided by a vote of the International Astronomical Union on Aug. 24.

For people who make their living on the old Mercury-through-Pluto system, a change in the planets means quick but welcome revisions, no matter how costly.

"This is, of course, a huge headache for publishers," said Gilbert Sewall, director of the American Textbook Council, a New York-based research institute that follows educational textbooks. Last-minute changes are expensive, but won't break any publisher, he said.

For example, Pearson Prentice Hall has science texts for next year going before California's textbook approval board and will try to get the 12-planet revision in for the state officials to review, said Julia Osborne, the publisher's science editorial director.

"It's worth it because this is such an exciting thing," Osborne said. But 2006 textbooks are already at schools, she said, so for "most students this fall it will be out of date."

Because schools keep textbooks for five to 10 years, it will be about seven years before most school books have 12 planets in them, said Osborne and Sewall.

Pity Jack Horkheimer, director of the Miami Space Transit Planetarium and host of PBS' "Star Gazer" show. His very first book, a full-length cartoon guide to naked-eye astronomy, features an entire chapter on the solar system - the nine-planet version.

It won't be out for four more weeks - after the world's astronomers are likely to open the solar system doors to three new planets: Ceres, Charon, and one nicknamed Xena to be renamed later.

"My book is out-of-date before it even hits the bookstands," Horkheimer said. "It's kind of like buying a computer. By the time you get it out of the box and get it hooked up, it's already obsolete."

At the Adler Planetarium in Chicago, the main pavilion has a model of the solar system - the sun and nine planets (Earth is the size of a softball). The planetarium will likely have to add three new planets.

"They're pretty small," said astronomy director Geza Gyuk of the proposed new planets. "Maybe we can bring in a pingpong ball and that'll do the trick."

The Adler already has a planetary anachronism. When it opened 76 years ago, plaques had already been commissioned for just eight planets. Pluto was discovered a few months later. Gyuk doesn't see the Adler adding plaques for Pluto or the three proposed planets because "we just don't have space."

For the several thousand planetariums around the world, this is more exciting than difficult, said Susan Reynolds Button, president-elect of the International Planetarium Society.

"It's not a problem," Reynolds Button said. "We already have the visuals. We already have the equipment to do it. It's just a matter of presenting new data."

Reynolds Button, who used to take planetarium shows to schools, said the addition of three new planets "is a real nice juicy topic to get kids excited about."

Dan Reidy, a sixth-grade science teacher in Moultonborough, N.H., was sitting in his classroom preparing for the new school year and gazing at his model of the solar system. He usually asks his students, "What's wrong with this picture?" The correct answer is that the planet sizes and their distances from the sun are all out of proportion.

If the planet lineup changes, there will be something else wrong with his model.

Reidy will also have to figure out where to place the new planets on a large parachute-cloth solar system map that demonstrates proper size and scale, but he said it was exciting.

The race to change solar system toys more permanently is already on.

Discovery Channel Store spokeswoman Pamela Rucker predicted new 12-planet toys could be in stores in time for the Christmas season.

"We're already starting to work on 12 planets," said McLynn of Learning Resources.

Source: www.forbes.com/home/feeds/ap/2006/08/16/ap2954292.html

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[Chicago Astronomer - Astro Joe]

A Solar System-Size Headache

At Chicago's Adler Planetarium & Astronomy Museum, the ongoing debate about the categorization of planets over the past few months has already sparked newfound interest in museum exhibits, sky shows, and an interactive classroom called CyberSpace -- which is equipped to quickly reflect scientific advancements like these. "It's exciting for the general public," said Susan Wagner, Adler's vice-president for exhibits and programs. "We are here to educate, and we will be very happy to engage the visitors in this debate."

Source: asia.news.yahoo.com/060825/7/2ozmo.html

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[Chicago Astronomer - Astro Joe]

What is Pluto considered now?

Pluto has been dropped as a planet, shocking our solar system and creating cosmic confusion. So what is Pluto?

The Adler Planetarium was jumping Thursday because our solar system is all the way out to Pluto. Poor Pluto. The International Astronomical Union decided Wednesday that Pluto just doesn't cut it as a planet anymore.

"Well, Pluto is now demoted a little bit to dwarf planet. And I like to think about it as still a planet. There are big ones ... there are really big ones like Jupiter ... and there are really small ones and Pluto is among the smaller planets," said Larry Ciupik, astronomer at Adler Planetarium. "And even if it's called a dwarf planet it's great that it's still a planet," said Ciupik.

Pluto has been an official planet since it was discovered in 1930. Now, suddenly, it's just an oddball, spaceball, iceball dwarf of a planet.

Source: abclocal.go.com/wls/story?section=local&id=4493467

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[Chicago Astronomer - Astro Joe]

Adler got it right, after all

Tombaugh's discovery in 1930 came just a few months after the Adler Planetarium opened, so for more than 75 years, a plaque in the museum's lobby has featured a Pluto-less solar system of eight planets. "Turns out it's been valid all these years,'' quipped Adler President Paul Knappenberger.

Thursday, Adler staff were updating sky shows and electronic exhibits to reflect Pluto's redesignation. A quick survey by the planetarium of 50 Adler visitors Thursday morning found 64 percent felt Pluto should remain a planet.

Michael Lach, director of math and science for the Chicago Public Schools, said lessons will be adjusted to reflect the change. The new designation "is kind of refreshing because it shows that science is a dynamic thing,'' said Lach.

In Streator, where a plaque recognizes Tombaugh's roots and the main drag was honorarily renamed for him, "It's not devastating but it is disappointing,'' said Streator Mayor Ray Schmidt. "How many towns can boast that one of their own discovered a planet?''

Tombaugh's wife, Patricia, who lives in Las Cruces, N.M., said her husband would have accepted the news with scientific detachment.

"Clyde would have said, 'Science is a progressive thing, and if you're going to be a scientist and put your neck out, you're apt to have it bitten upon,' " she said.

[Chicago Astronomer - Astro Joe]

For Some, the Planets Are Aligned

The Adler Planetarium & Astronomy Museum in Chicago, founded the year Pluto was discovered, said sales of a solar system poster doubled over the weekend.

"People are not buying just one of them at a time," said gift shop manager Linda Stucky. "They are buying two or three." She speculated that enthusiasts were getting them as collectibles.

Other items that have drawn customers to the shop include a Pluto crystal paperweight for $99.99.

"Saturn and Jupiter get a lot of attention because they are so beautiful," Stucky said. "Pluto is so far away and so small, we don't even have a good picture of it."

This does not dissuade Louis Friedman, executive director of the Planetary Society, which promotes space exploration and education. For the last few years, the Pasadena-based nonprofit has offered a set of nine posters — each with a photograph of a planet — to new members as a premium.

"We have thousands of them here," said Friedman, whose group is considering an inventory-clearing "last chance to get Pluto as a planet" promotion.

The full set of nine posters costs $10. If it shrinks to eight, the price will not be reduced. Sorry.

"Just like the Hershey candy bar," Friedman said. "The bar gets smaller, but the price remains the same."

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[Chicago Astronomer - Astro Joe]

New confusion as definition spins out of control

Geza Gyuk, director of astronomy at the Adler Planetarium, said revisiting the meaning of the word "planet" has been long overdue, because of discoveries in recent years of multiple Pluto-like objects in the solar system.

"People have been trying to figure out whether the term `planet' has any meaning as such, or is just a useful [generic] term," Gyuk said in a telephone interview. "It's important to have terms mean something that we can all agree on, but it's also not absolutely essential that we nail down everything, with no gray area. It's generally true about language: It's never precise."

Gyuk said that changing the classification of Pluto is the easy part; it's harder to change the definition of the word "planet" and get it to stick. "The IAU has absolute authority to classify objects, but I'm not sure they have the authority to define `planet' as such," Gyuk said in a telephone interview. (The IAU added the criterion that a "planet" must "clear the neighborhood around its orbit"; Pluto swings into Neptune's orbit, and so it's disqualified.)

Gyuk said the Pluto episode is a reminder that astronomy involves language, as well as science.

"Children frequently ask what it takes to become an astronomer," Gyuk said. "I always say math and science are important, but don't neglect English and history. You need to get your ideas across. You need good language to describe your discoveries."

Source: www.chicagotribune.com/entertainment/chi-0609050383sep06,1,6078637.story?track=rss

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[Chicago Astronomer - Astro Joe]

Pluto gaining popularity as a dwarf

Just because the International Astronomical Union voted in August to strip Pluto of its planetary status and relegate it to a new "dwarf planet" classification does not mean the rest of the world is ready to stop at Uranus.

On the contrary, said Mark Hammergren, astronomer at Chicago's Adler Planetarium, the fuss has brought the former ninth planet some long overdue attention.

"More people are asking about Pluto now," he said.

And that's good, he said, because Pluto is one of the most interesting bodies in the Kuiper Belt, a second asteroid belt located in the outer solar system.

The large icy body has a lot to tell us about the origins of the solar system -- a different neighborhood in the solar system but a member nonetheless. And Pluto was completely different from life-sustaining Earth and the gassy Jupiter and Neptune.

"Just because it now has a family doesn't make it any less interesting," Hammergren said.

But Pluto's newfound family caused it to lose significant ground in the eyes of some scientists. The discovery of other bodies within the Kuiper Belt, some larger than Pluto, lead to the discussion and eventual vote in the summer.

Not every scientist agrees with the outcome, however.

Hammergren said had he voted, he would have let Pluto retain its planetary status.

"For over 70 years, the entire world has been content to call it a planet. There was no real scientific reason to demote it," he said. "Why cause trouble? Why upset people needlessly?"

Trouble indeed. The backlash, though expected, was overwhelming.

Planetarium staffers conducted informal surveys of visitors immediately following the scientists' vote. The majority of responders favored keeping Pluto a planet. Some people were very upset about the change.

It all comes down to the world's definition of a planet. In science, he said, all bodies belong on a continuum, all are important, all are studied, regardless of how they're labeled.

But the cultural world likes to elevate the seeming importance of some by calling them planets.

"The definition of planet is not a technical one, it's a cultural one," he said.

Politics forced the issue, he said.

"There are rules and the guidelines vary for planets and asteroids," he said. The astronomers' group has two separate committees, one to deal with planets and one for asteroids.

When the discovery of more bodies along the outer reaches was made, questions arose over which committee would have jurisdiction over them.

That lead to the vote, he said.

"This is probably one of the more frustrating issues to planetary scientists recently specifically because it is not a question of science, it's more a question of feelings and personal opinions, and a great deal of nostalgia, as well," he said.

"People had a fondness for Pluto," he said. "But there is a fraction of the scientific community that doesn't like Pluto because it has all these siblings."

The fact that Pluto was discovered by an Illinois astronomer in 1930, the same year the Adler opened its doors, helps the argument carry even more emotional weight in these parts.

On the upside, while most members of the public at large are upset about the change in Pluto's status, the news has reignited interest in the farthest reaches of the solar system.

Will the media frenzy hang on for another 10 years, when the unmanned probe New Horizons is scheduled to reach Pluto for a closer look?

Meanwhile, the Planetarium is doing its best to appease an upset public. It has not made any major changes to exhibitry to reflect Pluto's dwarf standing. It has, however, tweaked its live sky show presentation.

And, for the first time ever, an Art Deco plaque of the solar system that hangs in the planterarium's lobby is accurate.

Constructed before Pluto's discovery in 1930 and donated to the museum, the plaque shows an eight-planet solar system.

When it was unveiled in 1930, it was inaccurate.

Full story here: www.dailysouthtown.com/lifestyles/98240,1LIF1-16.article

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