[meteorite-list] THE PLANETARY VOTE

[Sterling K. Webb]

Hi, List, Larry,


    The vote of the planet definition being on August 24th, 
Space.com ran an article about, not the definition: the vote, 
just like it was FoxNews reporting on an election. The full article
is reproduced below. But just like real TV, I'm going to indulge
in lots of "color commentary" first...

    Caution: Political Commentary: Brian Marsden, an former 
opponent of the idea, is now in favor. This means the he has 
been assured by the IAU that the data clearing house that 
he built over the decades and still runs will continue in its role 
(as it should), and his funding won't get cut.

    Caution: Political Commentary: David Charbonneau (extra-
solar planets) is a firm eight-planet guy, saying that the solar
system produced eight "fully-formed" planets and that the rest
is just leftover rubble. He's right ,of course, and that makes what
he discovers more important because they're "real" planets. 
    And, if he were an astronomer from the gas giants, he could say 
that the solar system produced FOUR "fully-formed" planets and 
that the rest is just leftover rubble. He'd be right, of course. 
    And, if he were an astronomer from Jupiter, he could say that 
the solar system produced ONE "fully-formed" planet and that 
the rest is just leftover rubble. He'd be right, of course. 
    Don't worry, David, your funding won't get cut.

    Caution: Political Commentary: The planetary scientists, as
a body, are in favor of the new idea: more planets means more 
objects of study means more funding for them. Example: would 
the idiots in Congress have cut (they restored it) the DAWN 
mission if Ceres was a PLANET and there would have been
fewer of them muttering over their rubber chicken, "Ceres? 
Whathahell is a Ceres? You mean, the Wurld Ceres?"

    Caution: Political Commentary: The extra-solar crowd seems
to be more opposed to the new definition than anybody else.
Geoff Marcy, THE extra-solar guy, was very direct. What's the
matter, Geoff? You didn't get famous enough fast enough?
Ironic, when the scuttlebutt was that the Committee threw in
the "double-planet" category as a sop to them. I guess they
weren't sopped. In fact, they to hate it the worst. My advice: 
want more funding? Find a planet of less than 3 Earth masses 
that's not blazing hot nor freezing cold. Our ears will perk up
a lot more than if you come up with two dozen more boiling 
super-Jupiters grazing a photosphere...

    Caution: Political Commentary: Nobody seems to be directing
the focus of their dis-satisfaction on the idea that the Planet Ceres
is the Planet Ceres, a very pleasing development to all us closeted
Ceres lovers. I haven't found even one quote lambasting Ceres as 
worthless junk, a miserable rockpile, asteroidal po' icewhite trash.

    Here's the URL and Space.com's text just as they ran it. Well, 
I corected their spelling errors, but that's all:

Sterling K. Webb----------------

http://www.space.com/scienceastronomy/060817_planet_support.html

Astronomers Sharply Divided on New Planet Definition 
By Robert Roy Britt
Senior Science Writer
posted: 17 August 2006
10:41 am ET
UPDATED 2:30 p.m. ET 

    A 12-person committee representing the world's 
largest group of planetary scientists today threw its 
support behind a new planet-definition proposal that 
would increase the tally of planets in our solar system to 12.
More dissent emerged, too, from several prominent 
planet experts. 

Straw Poll 

SPACE.com conducted an informal straw poll of 
respected astronomers who study planets and other 
small objects in our solar system and around other 
stars. Not all of them are at the IAU meeting where 
they can vote, but the question is this:
How would you vote on the planet definition proposal?
        Yes = 5       No = 7         Undecided = 0


    The definition, proposed yesterday at a meeting 
of the International Astronomical Union (IAU) in 
Prague, preserves Pluto's planet status and essentially 
classifies as planets all round objects that orbit the 
Sun and do not orbit another planet. The tally of 
planets is expected to eventually soar into the hundreds 
if the resolution is passed by a vote next week. 

    The Division for Planetary Sciences (DPS), a group 
within the American Astronomical Society, has the 
opposite view. The 12-member DPS Committee, 
elected by the membership, "strongly supports the 
IAU resolution," according to a statement released today. 
"The new definition is clear and compact, it is firmly 
based on the physical properties of celestial objects 
themselves, and it is applicable to planets found 
around other stars. It opens the possibility for many 
new Pluto-like planets to be discovered in our solar 
system," the DPS statement reads.

    A SPACE.com survey of a dozen astronomers 
who study planets in and out of our solar system 
found five in favor of the resolution and seven against. 
A separate private straw poll being conducted by the 
National Academies of Sciences has so far yielded 
an overwhelming "No" response, a source told SPACE.com. 

'Terrible definition' 

    Clearly no consensus has emerged, however. 
"I think it's a terrible definition," said David Charbonneau, 
a researcher at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for 
Astrophysics who searches for and studies planets 
around other stars. Charbonneau joins two other astronomers 
close to the issue who sharply criticized the plan.
     
    Charbonneau said the definition was motivated by 
a desire to determine whether Pluto and another object, 
2003 UB313, are planets. But the IAU now says there 
are a dozen other objects that might be planets but need 
further study.

    "It is ironic that we are left with more, not fewer 
objects for which we are uncertain of their 'planetary' 
status," Charbonneau told SPACE.com. "Perhaps 
astronomy will undergo a schism, with sects of astronomers 
proclaiming different numbers of planets."

    "As representatives of an international community 
of planetary scientists, we urge that the resolution be 
approved," said the DPS statement, signed by chairman 
Richard French of Wellesley College. 

    In an email interview, French said he supports the 
definition but realizes its shortcomings.

    "My own personal definition would have been 
different from the final IAU resolution, but scientists 
have been stalemated for years by defending their 
own pet definitions," French said. "I understand 
the appeal of a simple declaration that Pluto is no 
longer a planet and that the solar system has only 
eight, but I also think there is value in the present 
definition that has applicability to planets around 
other stars as well."

The DPS has about 1,300 members, at least one-quarter 
of which are outside the United States. The statement 
does not represent the views of all members, said DPS 
Press Officer Sanjay Limaye. "There has been some 
feedback saying, 'I don't like it,'" he said. 

'Worst' decision 

The definition would make a planet of the asteroid 
Ceres and also reclassify Pluto's moon Charon as 
a planet, on the logic that the center of gravity around 
which Charon and Pluto orbit is not inside Pluto but 
rather in the space between them. (Earth's Moon orbits 
our planet around a center of gravity that is inside Earth.) 

    Pluto and Charon would be called a double planet, 
and they'd also be termed "plutons" to distinguish them 
from the eight "classical" planets. Ceres would be termed 
a dwarf planet. 

The definition entirely misses the key element of a solar 
system object, namely its role in the formation of the 
solar system," Charbonneau said. "There are eight fully 
formed planets. The other objects-Ceres, Pluto, 
Charon, [2003 UB313], and hundreds of thousands 
of others, are the fascinating byproducts of the 
formation of these eight planets."

    David Jewitt, an astronomer at the University of 
Hawaii who searches for objects in the outer solar 
system, told SPACE.com that the proposal is "the 
worst kind of compromised committee report."
Jewitt has long avoided the whole debate over whether 
Pluto is a planet "because I think it is essentially bogus 
and scientifically it is a non-issue." He waded in 
reluctantly this week.

    "Scientifically, whether Pluto is also a planet is 
a non-issue," Jewitt writes on his web site. "No scientific 
definition of planet-hood exists or is needed. Is that 
a boat or a ship? It doesn't matter if you are using it 
to float across the ocean. Scientists are interested in 
learning about the origin of the solar system, and 
setting up arbitrary definitions of planet-hood is 
of no help here."

    Geoff Marcy, who has led the discovery of more 
planets around other stars than anyone, called the 
definition arbitrary. 

    "Pluto, its moon, and large asteroids cannot 
suddenly be deemed planets," Marcy said in an 
email interview. "How would we explain to students 
that one large asteroid is a planet but the next 
biggest one isn't?"

    Astronomers made a mistake when they deemed 
Pluto a planet in the 1930's, Marcy and many other 
astronomers say. "Scientists should show that they 
can admit mistakes and rectify them," he said. 

'Just might work' 

    However, one mild endorsement came today from 
Brian Marsden, who heads the Minor Planet Center 
where asteroids, comets and other newfound solar 
system objects are catalogued. 

    Marsden was on an IAU committee of planetary 
scientists that tried for a year but failed to come up 
with a definition for the word "planet," which was 
never needed until recent discoveries of Pluto-sized 
worlds out beyond Neptune. The newly proposed 
definition was crafted by a second IAU committee 
of seven astronomers and historians. 

Marsden is a firm believer that there are eight planets, 
but the new proposal has him sounding more flexible 
than in the past. 

In an email message from Prague, Marsden said the 
new definition is "intended to satisfy the eight-planet 
traditionalists (such as myself) and the 'plutocrats.'" 
He added that he's "not against" the idea of using 
roundness as a determining factor. 

    The IAU proposal will be voted on by IAU 
members Aug. 24.

    "It all just might work," Marsden said.