Don't Be Screwin' With Pluto
Posted: Mon Mar 16, 2009 8:21 pm
Astrophysicist: Love of Pluto the dog led to fury over planet’s demotion
Astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson (pictured below) blames the backlash he has received for recognizing Pluto as a dwarf – and not a full-fledged – planet on the popularity of the Disney dog with the same name.
In his new book, “The Pluto Files,” Tyson asserts that Americans’ love for Walt Disney’s Pluto the dog caused the public outrage that greeted the planet’s demotion in classification to a dwarf planet.
“It’s a hypothesis, but I have no other way to account for it,” he said in a phone interview with Around Disney. “I landed there because we all know Mickey’s dog, and we’re interested in cartoon characters around the same time as we learn about the planets.”
In 2000, Tyson, the director of the Hayden Planetarium, rearranged the New York City institution’s exhibit on the solar system.
Instead of the old-school way of grouping the planets by their distance from the sun, Tyson figured it’d be more accurate to group planets by type.
For instance, Mercury, Earth and Mars are rocky planets, while Jupiter and Saturn are gaseous.
In the Hayden Planetarium exhibit, Pluto is grouped with a bunch of other icy objects that skirt the edge of the solar system.
“We presented a new family photo of the solar system — we weren’t just counting planets,” Tyson explained.
Well, everything was fine until a scathing article appeared on the front page of The New York Times early in 2001: “Pluto’s not a planet? Only in New York.”
“That’s when I started getting hate mail from third graders,” Tyson said.
Walt Disney had named Mickey’s famed cohort for the planet shortly after amateur astronomer Clyde Tombaugh discovered it in 1930.
There was a firestorm of debate over the public dissing of Pluto by the Hayden Planetarium, even though the technical classification of Pluto had been questioned for decades within the scientific community.
The International Astronomical Union — a committee that decides scientific definitions to keep consistent scientific language – officially downgraded Pluto to a dwarf planet in August 2006.
In response to the outcry at the planet’s demotion, the Disney company issued a press release:
Although we think it’s DOPEY that Pluto has been downgraded to a dwarf planet, which has made some people GRUMPY and others just SLEEPY, we are not BASHFUL in saying we would be HAPPY if Disney’s Pluto would join us as the 8th dwarf. We think it’s just what the DOC ordered and it’s nothing to SNEEZE at.
The California Legislature even approved a law within minutes of the IAU’s vote in 2006 officially recognizing Pluto as a planet — at least, as far as the state of California is concerned. The legislation included a reference to the Disney character of the same name:
WHEREAS: Pluto, named after the Roman God of the Underworld and affectionately sharing name of California’s most famous animated dog, has a special connection to California’s history and culture…
Astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson (pictured below) blames the backlash he has received for recognizing Pluto as a dwarf – and not a full-fledged – planet on the popularity of the Disney dog with the same name.
In his new book, “The Pluto Files,” Tyson asserts that Americans’ love for Walt Disney’s Pluto the dog caused the public outrage that greeted the planet’s demotion in classification to a dwarf planet.
“It’s a hypothesis, but I have no other way to account for it,” he said in a phone interview with Around Disney. “I landed there because we all know Mickey’s dog, and we’re interested in cartoon characters around the same time as we learn about the planets.”
In 2000, Tyson, the director of the Hayden Planetarium, rearranged the New York City institution’s exhibit on the solar system.
Instead of the old-school way of grouping the planets by their distance from the sun, Tyson figured it’d be more accurate to group planets by type.
For instance, Mercury, Earth and Mars are rocky planets, while Jupiter and Saturn are gaseous.
In the Hayden Planetarium exhibit, Pluto is grouped with a bunch of other icy objects that skirt the edge of the solar system.
“We presented a new family photo of the solar system — we weren’t just counting planets,” Tyson explained.
Well, everything was fine until a scathing article appeared on the front page of The New York Times early in 2001: “Pluto’s not a planet? Only in New York.”
“That’s when I started getting hate mail from third graders,” Tyson said.
Walt Disney had named Mickey’s famed cohort for the planet shortly after amateur astronomer Clyde Tombaugh discovered it in 1930.
There was a firestorm of debate over the public dissing of Pluto by the Hayden Planetarium, even though the technical classification of Pluto had been questioned for decades within the scientific community.
The International Astronomical Union — a committee that decides scientific definitions to keep consistent scientific language – officially downgraded Pluto to a dwarf planet in August 2006.
In response to the outcry at the planet’s demotion, the Disney company issued a press release:
Although we think it’s DOPEY that Pluto has been downgraded to a dwarf planet, which has made some people GRUMPY and others just SLEEPY, we are not BASHFUL in saying we would be HAPPY if Disney’s Pluto would join us as the 8th dwarf. We think it’s just what the DOC ordered and it’s nothing to SNEEZE at.
The California Legislature even approved a law within minutes of the IAU’s vote in 2006 officially recognizing Pluto as a planet — at least, as far as the state of California is concerned. The legislation included a reference to the Disney character of the same name:
WHEREAS: Pluto, named after the Roman God of the Underworld and affectionately sharing name of California’s most famous animated dog, has a special connection to California’s history and culture…