Wednesday, February 18, 2009

Happy Anniversary, Pluto!

Jennifer wrote:
I tried the 5 year old explanation on my son today, with a few extra details thrown in to set the scene. I swear I saw stars sparkling in his eyes when I finished. Worked like a charm :).
Nice, glad it worked!

One final postscript I forgot to mention on all of this to make it particularly fitting: today is the 79th anniversary of Pluto's discovery.

In honor of the anniversary, I just came from a department event announcing the newly created position of the Clyde Tombaugh endowed chair. Patsy Tombaugh, Clyde's widow, spoke at the event to a packed room. She quoted Clyde in what I thought was a particularly nice sentiment: "How can people not be interested in astronomy? Don't they want to know where they are?"

Mike.

9 comments:

  1. Bravo!! I'm very glad you put a comma in (kick-ass) as most people in their stupidy won't - too much trouble or something! Stupid people. Now, can you see why Wall Street/our crass Goverment is having so much trouble? People have absolutely no respect for grammar; thus, they lose a sense of what's RITE vs. RONG. I'm very glad you do. Keep it up, sarge, and I'll see you in Heaven someday where alla the RITE-grammar-humans congregate.

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  2. Does the discovery that Pluto is no longer a planet now deserve its own anniversary, and should it replace the first one?

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  3. Well, passthewoundsalt, I don't know if it was "discovered" that Pluto was not a planet, so much as a re-categorization.

    That said, in spite of the IAU's decision, the planetary astronomy community is still pretty divided on the issue. I went to a planetary conference a couple years ago and for the Kuiper Belt talks they asked each speaker to wear one of two name tags: either "Pluto is a planet" or "Pluto is not a planet". Each time a new speaker came up to the podium, there were accompanying boo's and cheers no matter which tag they chose.

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  4. Wow! That's heavy, but fascinating. My blog is interesting but not quite as cerebral. If you want a light read, feel free to check it out.
    http://scholarlee-vexednation.blogspot.com/
    Thanks.

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  5. www.letthereber0ck.blogspot.com

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  6. Kold... Why are you so snobby about peoples grammer? Maybe some people arn`t as educated as you. You`re comments would upset these people. Not everyone, cares if all the, commas are in the rite places anyway.

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  7. I don´t speak english very well. but your Site i´s beatiful!
    I love Planet Astromer.
    Big kiss!
    ESTRELA SELMA

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  8. In Portuguese...
    Me visite, ok?
    I like your Blog/Site!!
    Beijão,
    ESTRELA SELMA

    ReplyDelete