Saturday, September 02, 2006

The Fight
for Pluto
Rages On
Sept. 1, 2006
by the Editors of Sky & Telescope

It's not over yet.

In the past week a small but growing group of scientists made their first formal attack against the International Astronomical Union's August 24th
resolution that left the solar system with eight planets and downgraded Pluto to a new class of objects known as "dwarf planets."

On Thursday two heavy hitters in the planetary-science community — Mark Sykes, director of the Planetary Science Institute, and S. Alan Stern, an executive director of the Southwest Research Institute and leader of the Pluto-bound New Horizons mission — unveiled a petition formally disputing the new definition. The petition, signed by more than 300 of the world's leading space scientists, states, "We, as planetary scientists and astronomers, do not agree with the IAU's definition of a planet, nor will we use it."

The signatories call for a "better definition" of a planet and ask that the method to determine that definition includes more input from the global astronomical community. According to the petitioners, only about 4% of the IAU's nearly 10,000 members were present in Prague to vote on the resolution. In a prepared statement Sykes wrote, "A more open process, involving a broader cross section of the community engaged in planetary studies of our own solar system and others, should be undertaken."
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