My friend and radio dude Paul Harris interviewed me briefly on Wednesday about this whole Pluto-is-a-planet nonsense. I thought it was a fun interview, and Paul has put it online (or you can download the mp3 directly here).
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Phil Plait, the creator of Bad Astronomy, is an astronomer, lecturer, and author. After ten years working on Hubble Space Telescope and six more working on astronomy education, he struck out on his own as a writer. He's written two books, dozens of magazine articles, and 12 bazillion blog articles. He is a skeptic and fights the abuse of science, but his true love is praising the wonders of real science.
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August 17th, 2006 at 9:53 am
Nice joke there at the end Phill! Overall, you did convey what this hubub was gettin’ at. I for one take the angle that the more the merrier, but helping my son with his homework (he’s 4 now, a while yet still) will be a headache for me, you know, memorizing 100,000 TNOs…
August 17th, 2006 at 9:57 am
This issue needs to be resolved once and for all.
Definitely time for a Holy War.
So do the fatwas have to be peer reviewed, or can we just post them as RFCs?
If we die a martyr, do we get virgins and all the Meade telescope equipment we could every want?
I heard it used to be 75 virgins, but was recetly reduced to 70.
If you get that last one, consider yourself very astrogeeky.
August 17th, 2006 at 10:00 am
This is what my personal definition of a planet has always been:
1) It is large enough to be (close to) spherical
2) It is small enough that it doesn’t fuse tritium
3) It formed from the accretion disc of a star
If it didn’t form around a star it isn’t a planet, it is something else. If it is large enough to create its own heat by any form of (limited) fusion it is a brown dwarf (IMO). If it doesn’t have enough mass to pull itself into a sphere it is too small to be considered a planet.
Those have been my personal conditions for calling something a “planet” for a long time. Obviously you can subdivide planets into different classes as well (rocky, gassy, icy, green cheese, peppermint).
August 17th, 2006 at 10:14 am
In case anyone is unfamiliar with the semi-successful band “2 Skinnee J’s,†all this debate reminds me of one of my favorite songs, “Pluto is a Planet,†which dates back to the late 90’s when I first started hearing about this controversy.
You can read the lyrics at: http://lyricwiki.org/2_Skinnee_J's:Pluto
But really, you should download the song or get the album, Supermercado. Great Stuff!
That particular song is complete with sound effects from roaring Star Wars TIE fighters… I know, I know, spacecraft don’t make noise in the vacuum of space…but otherwise half of the Star Wars trilogy would have been akin to a silent film, and may never have peaked beyond an appearance on Mystery Science Theater 3000!
Now back to “BA” the book. I’m finally up to the chapter on Astrology, so I’ll have some good rebuttals for my whacky sister who swears it’s all legit! Of course, she should also know I’m a Gemini, and everyone knows Geminis don’t believe in Astrology….
August 17th, 2006 at 10:15 am
These comments need an edit feature;).
I never really considered what would be a “moon” and what wouldn’t be. That’s a tough question to answer without getting into totally arbitrary criteria.
August 17th, 2006 at 12:04 pm
Lot of fun in that interview there.
You’d think that another asterisk be added in case you get a planet formed that not orbiting a star (as you mentioned in the other blog entry).
Well, it would be interesting to hear what the final results are.
August 17th, 2006 at 12:51 pm
Hilarious ending. I’m still drying my eyes. Very enjoyable, thanks.
August 17th, 2006 at 1:38 pm
Could you write down the whole interview? For some strange, unknown, and freaky reason the computer won’t completly load the page with the mp3 on it.
August 17th, 2006 at 1:48 pm
Very great interview! And very nice answers! Especially the last one was absolutly perfect describing the hole stuff!
August 17th, 2006 at 1:51 pm
Fender, try right clicking on the MP3 link and saving the file directly to your computer.
August 17th, 2006 at 2:55 pm
I fumbled a bit on the see-saw analogy… I had never really thought of it before, and realized it was good, and I knew that explaining the barycenter on the radio (without being able to gesture) would be hard. But it seemed stilted. I’ll have to listen to the thing again.
August 17th, 2006 at 7:39 pm
I feared you might tetter-totter with that analogy as soon as you headed there, but you captured the essence of the idea and it worked pretty well, IMO, even though the fulcrum point does not shift when you move one of the riders. Two hand in hand ice skatters, you pick their relative sizes, might server better.