Pluto demotion draws protest
POSTED: 9:09 a.m. EDT, September 2, 2006
LAS CRUCES, New Mexico (AP) — Size doesn’t matter.
That was the message as friends and colleagues of the late Clyde
Tombaugh, the astronomer who discovered Pluto, gathered on the New
Mexico State University campus to protest the International Astronomical
Union’s recent decision to strip Pluto of its status as a planet.
About 50 students and staff members turned out Friday for the
good-natured challenge. Some were wearing T-shirts and carrying signs
that read “Protest for Pluto” and “Size Doesn’t Matter.”
Tombaugh’s widow, Patricia, and their son, Al Tombaugh, also participated.
NMSU astronomer Bernie McNamara told the crowd that textbooks shouldn’t
be rewritten.
“Why not? Because the debate is not over,” McNamara said.
The IAU determined last week that a planet must orbit the sun and be
large enough to assume a nearly round shape as well as “clear the
neighborhood around its orbit.” Pluto’s oblong orbit overlaps Neptune’s,
which led the IAU to downsize the solar system to eight planets from the
traditional nine.
http://www.cnn.com/2006/TECH/space/09/02/pluto.protest.ap/index.html