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| ...avarice drags Pluto himself out of the bowels of the earth | |
| -- Karl Marx |
Pity poor Pluto.
Sure, it reigned as the last planet in the solar system for more than 70 years, but then it was stripped of that title by the International Astronomical Union in a manner so profoundly dumb that I'm still wondering what they were thinking. I do think that the definition of planet can be debated, and that Pluto plays its part, but the IAU really screwed the pooch with the way they did it.
Whether you call Pluto a planet, an iceball, or an animated dog, it's still a very interesting object. And today, March 13, 2009, marks the 79th anniversary of the announcement of Pluto to the world (and in Illinois it's officially Pluto Day), so what better time to talk about it? We know a lot more about it than we did in 1930... and while you may know some of its features, I just bet that if I listed ten of them, there may be one or two Things You Don't Know About Pluto.
What follows is my list of Plutorrific stuff about that distant iceball, the fifth in my Ten Things You Don't Know series (the others are the Sun, black holes, the Milky Way, and the Earth). The last one I did was the Sun, which keeps us warm and cozy... so let's head to the opposite end of the solar system and journey out into the deep black.
Remember, use the "Next" and "Back" buttons under the images to navigate this post; each "Next" takes you to the next item. Also, please note that comments are disabled due to a software bug in the gallery that grinds the gears of Wordpress. They'll be turned on when traffic for this post dies down.
Image credit: Poor Pluto by Mathias Pedersen
March 13th, 2009 at 8:44 am
[...] Things You Don’t Know About Pluto Ten Things You Don’t Know About Pluto by Phil Plait (Bad Astronomy) …avarice drags Pluto himself out of the bowels of the earth — [...]
March 13th, 2009 at 10:26 am
It’s Pluto Day!
Just recently the Illinois senate decided to honor the underdog of the planet world by not only declaring that within the Illinois border it shall be known as a planet, but by declaring that today, March 13, 2009 will be the first annual Pluto Day.
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March 13th, 2009 at 11:30 am
[...] take a few moments to look at this Discover Magazine presentation about the ex-planet Pluto. It is very well done and not at all [...]
March 13th, 2009 at 1:49 pm
[...] try as some people may to belittle it, is too beloved to simply go away. Even anti-Plutonians are fascinated by it. So to celebrate the state of Illinois’ very first Pluto Day, since [...]
March 13th, 2009 at 2:31 pm
[...] I mentioned in the Pluto post, Neptune and Pluto never get really close together, so New Horizons isn’t exactly dropping by [...]
March 13th, 2009 at 2:58 pm
[...] Phil Plait (Bas Astronomy): 10 coisas que você não sabe sobre Plutão [...]