Top > World > 2006 > September > 2006-09-04

NMSU Sees Pro-Pluto Protest

Friends and colleagues of the scientist who discovered Pluto protested the Astronomical International Union`s (AIU) recent decision to demote Pluto from its planet status to "dwarf planet". The AIU decided that to be considered a planet, among other things it must be round in shape and must orbit the sun. In the end they decided to reduce the solar system to eight planets, as Pluto sometimes ventures within the orbit of Neptune. The decision has been met with scorn by many, both inside and outside of the astronomy community.

Fifty people of various levels of closeness to the late astronomer Clyde Tombaugh, who discovered Pluto, are among those who have publicly disagreed with the AIU`s decision. Protestors over the weekend carried signs on the campus of New Mexico State University, with such slogans on them as "Size Doesn`t Matter" and "Protest for Pluto". The protestors argue that the way in which the AIU made the decision was unfair to Pluto, and Tombaugh`s legacy.

An astronomer at New Mexico State University, Bernie McNamara, said "This was not a statement by the astronomical community at large." On August 24, when the decision was made, only 400 of the reported thousands of AIU members voted on demoting Pluto. Tombaugh discovered the planet in 1930, when he was only 24 years old, and he made the discovery at a time when observations of objects with as great a distance as Pluto`s was very difficult.