Accidental Blogger

So, the IAU voted to bump poor Pluto off the planetary line-up!  I am quite heartbroken.  Well, at least, very disappointed.  I was not wholly certain whether the three new planets would be inducted into the planetary family but I sure didn’t expect Pluto to be expelled unceremoniously. Henceforth school children will have to memorize just eight planet names in the solar system, rather than the nine (since 1930) or the possible twelve, had Ceres, Charon and 2003 UB313 (or Xena) passed the planetary muster.

"Forget what you learned in third grade. Pluto is no longer one of the nine planets of the solar system.

The International Astronomical Union in Prague ruled today that the much-maligned Pluto no longer qualifies as a planet under historic new guidelines, thereby stripping Pluto of the planetary status it has held since it was discovered in 1930, news services reported.

The prestigious international group in the Czech Republic today spelled out the basic tests a celestial body needs to pass before it can be deemed a planet: "A celestial body that is in orbit around the sun, has sufficient mass for its self-gravity to overcome rigid body forces so that it assumes a . . . nearly round shape, and has cleared the neighborhood around its orbit."

It’s the last part of the definition that doomed Pluto. Its oblong orbit overlaps with Neptune’s. Pluto will now be reclassified in a new category of "dwarf planets," similar to what astronomers have long called "minor planets. Membership in the sun’s solar system will be restricted to the eight "classical" planets: Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune.

The decision at a conference of 2,500 astronomers from 75 countries was a dramatic shift from just a week ago, when astronomers came up with a new definition that would have saved the tiny body’s place in the sun’s family.

That plan proved highly unpopular, dividing the group into factions and triggering an acrimonious debate full of angry denunciations that ultimately sunk Pluto."

Bummer! I will miss Pluto. But why? I have never visited Pluto and don’t expect to in the future. I haven’ even seen Pluto. My life is not affected by whether Pluto is or is not a planet. I never think about Pluto until the subject of planets comes up, which in my day to day life, is not often. But what I learnt in childhood about the planets is etched in my mind and in that memory, Pluto is the faraway ninth planet in our own celestial neighborhood, the solar system. I feel reluctant to shake off the notion, if for no other reason than dogged sentimentality.  It is indeed interesting how casual  familiarity with objects and ideas shapes our view of the world … and the universe.  New words enter the lexicon every few years.  New gadgets enter our homes.  New knowledge enters the body of human wisdom. With advancing age, some find the changes unsettling. Most  however, adjust to  new facts and revise their outlook.  But what we learn in our childhood and early youth is our most "natural" knowledge and that is the most enduring yardstick by which we measure the world around us.  And that is what in part, gives rise to the generation gap.

Each year in August, since 1998, Beloit College in Wisconsin compiles a list of ideas and objects which the entering class of students has grown up with and which are therefore expected to have shaped their world view and cultural mind set.  This list is famously known as The Beloit College Mindset List. 

Here is a partial list of what contributed to the mindset of this year’s entering class of 2010.  (For the entire list, check out the linked page.)

• The Soviet Union has never existed in their lifetime.
• There has always been only one Germany.
• They have never actually heard anyone "ring up" a register.
• They are wireless, yet always connected.
• DNA fingerprinting has been permissible in court.
• Smoking has never been permitted on airplanes.
• "Google" has always been a verb.
• There has always been a Disneyland in Europe and Asia.
• There have always been bar codes on almost everything including library books.
• They don’t know what carbon copy is.
• "Outing" has always meant a threat, not an adventure.
• Professional athletes have always participated in the Olympics.

School textbooks will take a few years to update. Teachers will need time to tailor their teaching material to meet the new standards of planetary eligibility. New charts and models of the solar system will have to be constructed. Assuming that school children learn elementary astronomy in the 2nd or 3rd grade, in which year will the Beloit College Mindset list include college students whose view of the universe did not include Pluto as a "real" planet?