It's a Planet If We Say It's a Planet (NM Legislature restores Pluto's status)

The International Astronomical Union may have demoted Pluto from its full-fledged status as a planet last year, designating it a "dwarf planet," but the state House of Representatives this week passed a joint memorial restoring Pluto to its full planetary glory whenever it passes over New Mexico, the Las Cruces Sun-News reported.

Clyde Tombaugh, who helped create New Mexico State University's astronomy department and spent much of his life in Las Cruces, discovered photographic evidence of Pluto on Feb. 18, 1930, at the Lowell Observatory in Flagstaff, Ariz.

Tombaugh's 94-year-old widow, Patsy Tombaugh, and his daughter, Annette Tombaugh-Sitze, who both live in Las Cruces, were on hand in Santa Fe on Tuesday when the House approved the joint memorial, which also declares March 13, 2007, as "Pluto Planet Day," the Sun-News reported.

"In a way, it's saying that the state is supporting the fact it should be a planet," Patsy Tombaugh said. "I think it's nice they did that."

Patsy Tombaugh said there's a movement afoot among astronomers to bring back Pluto's full planetary status, but, she added, "It will always be a planet to me -- no matter what they decide to do."

Was the Pluto Vote Anti-American?
by Robert Naeye
Sky & Telescope
September 5, 2006
The short answer to this potentially explosive question is "I don't know." ...While there is no proof for the accusation in the title above, three leading American planetary scientists told me last week that they keenly sensed a strong anti-American component in the IAU vote... These astronomers, who do not wish to be named for fear of backlash, charge that at least some of the astronomers used the Pluto vote as a way to "stick it" to the United States for its perceived domination of the IAU in past years, and to protest the invasion of Iraq... In going against the DPS endorsement, the IAU essentially delivered a slap in the face to the largest organization of planetary sciences in the world -- whose membership happens to be predominantly American. A petition that circulated last week among a partial list of DPS members, and which calls for a revised definition of "planet," attracted more than 300 signatures. But I was struck by the fact that only a handful came from scientists outside the US. Regardless of what one thinks of Pluto, the wording (and not necessarily the intent) of the IAU's accepted definition is deeply flawed, as I pointed out in my blog entry on August 24th. It boggles my mind that hundreds of intelligent, well-informed astronomers actually voted for it. It deliberately excludes extrasolar planets, and because it specifies that a planet is a celestial body that "has cleared the neighborhood around its orbit," a literal interpretation would boot out Earth, Mars, Jupiter, and Neptune.

"To Pluto And Far Beyond" By David H. Levy, Parade, January 15, 2006 -- We don't have a dictionary definition yet that includes all the contingencies. In the wake of the new discovery, however, the International Astronomical Union has set up a group to develop a workable definition of planet. For our part, in consultation with several experienced planetary astronomers, Parade offers this definition: A planet is a body large enough that, when it formed, it condensed under its own gravity to be shaped like a sphere. It orbits a star directly and is not a moon of another planet.

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