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The Case for Pluto: How a Little Planet Made a Big Difference

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"Mercury may be a burnout case, and Mars isn't what he used to be. Venus is a hottie, but she'll make your life hell. With Saturn, it's all about the rings and the bling. Jupiter takes himself waaaaay too seriously. Uranus won't stop with the off-color puns, while Neptune's jokes will leave you cold. But Pluto? Now, that's one funny planet!"

The above comes from this extremely interesting book by Alan Boyle. Boyle is science editor for MSNBC dot com.

As you probably can deduce from above, this book is about what was historically the ninth planet of our solar system: Pluto. Boyle goes into the history of Pluto's discovery (I never thought a space object's history could be so interesting!) and then goes into the politics of Pluto's reclassification. And don't worry! All the critical science is well-presented and easy to understand. (Note that the word "plutoed," found in this review's title, is an actual newly-coined word meaning demoted or devalued.)

From here, Boyle gives us a brief intermission in a chapter entitled "The Lighter Side of Pluto." Boyle presents David Letterman's joke in this chapter, a joke that he said after a historic conference in
Prague:

"Today Pluto packed up and moved out. It said it is now going to spend more time with the family. Even sadder, it hung out around Saturn all day trying to get a job as a moon."

He then resumes his more serious discussion with such chapters entitled "The Great Planet Debate" (that is, what exactly is a planet?) and "Alien Plutos."

The book's final chapter title is the same as the book's title: "The Case for Pluto." After presenting his case, he tells us in the last sentence of this chapter:

"So don't count Pluto out yet. The case is far from closed."

Boyle tells us what this book is on a deeper level:

"It's a case study that shows how politics and personalities can affect the scientific process, and how the scientific process can in turn affect popular culture."

As an added bonus, you'll also learn what Santa has in common with the Easter bunny!

Peppered throughout this book are interesting black and white photographs. My favourite is the frontispiece that shows "Pluto defenders" carrying signs saying "Protest for Pluto" and "Size Doesn't Matter." Also included in the middle of the book are over ten beautiful color photos.

Finally, Boyle tells us everything about Pluto. However, he forgot one thing. The chemical element "plutonium" (atomic number 94) was named in honour of Pluto.

In conclusion, this is an extremely well-written book that honours the one-time planet Pluto. {Today, you can think of Pluto as not being the "ninth of nine" of our solar system planets (that is, eight is enough) but "it's the first of many."} I'd like to leave you with these comparison statistics of Earth and Pluto:

1. Pluto is about 500 times less massive than the Earth.
2. Pluto is about 5.5 times smaller in diameter than the Earth.
3. Pluto is 2.75 times less dense (on average) than the Earth.
4. Pluto is 40 times more distant (on average) from the sun than the Earth.
5. Pluto's day is about 6.5 Earth days.
6. Pluto's year is about 250 Earth years.
7. Pluto has 4 moons while the Earth has one.

(first published 2010; acknowledgements; 15 chapters; main narrative 205 pages; 3 appendices; notes; bibliography; credits; index)

<<Stephen Pletko, London, Ontario, Canada>>

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This is a fresh, accessible and important book. We know the outline of the story - some scientists vote the planet with a Disney dog name off the list of planets - but not the details, the background, and why it all is important. Neil deGrasse Tyson is quoted as saying, "The question should not be how many planets there are, there's no science in that question." And that's true, but there is plenty of science in understanding the solar system and bringing a more rational taxonomy to celestial objects.

The debate hinges on two ways to carve the bits of rock and gas flying around the Sun. Roundness is caused by internal gravity that forces together matter into a round world. Dynamical dominance on the other hand looks at its gravitational effect on other bodies. It's more complicated than the Star Trek test for planethood. "The Starship Enterprise shows up at a given body, they turn on the cameras on the bridge and they see it. Captain Kirk and Spock could look at it and they could say, `That's a star, that's a planet, that's a comet.' They could tell the difference."

In its own right this is a good story, well told. Some science, some history, some politics. As Boyle writes, "If there's still someone out there who thinks science and politics never mix, the story behind the Battle of Prague should change your mind."

For philosophers of science, this battle between dynamicists and geophysicists is an interesting example of Thomas Kuhn's paradigm shift of Scientific Revolution (See The Structure of Scientific Revolutions) occurring before our eyes. Boyle uses the paradigm phrase once, but does not explain its deeper meaning. A small flaw in an otherwise worthwhile quality book.

When I first read about Pluto's demotion from planet status I assumed that this was for good reasons and based on scientific consensus. I did not think much about it. However, hearing my kids talk about a visit to their school from a well known scientist, Alan Stern, (who opposed the IAU decision) made me realize that it was a lot more to it. After reading this book I know that the IAU resolutions taken in Prague in the summer of 2006 are nothing but an embarrassing disaster.

Folks, I suggest that you don't take down your Pluto's from your planet charts just yet.

This book "The Case for Pluto" is a small hard bound book which presents a fairly detailed history of the planets, the search for the Planet X, the discovery of Pluto, how it was named, how it came to be regarded as a planet and why it probably would not have been called a planet if it was discovered today. The book tells us about the Pluto Underground and NASA's expedition to Pluto (the New Horizons) as well as battle of Prague in 2006 and its repercussions. It is also gives an overview of the composition of and the history of the Asteroid belt and the Kuiper belt.

However, the thrust of the book is focused on the definition of "Planet" and how this definition matters to the search for Exo-Planets as well as to whether Pluto is a planet or not. Therefore I am going to give an overview of the IAU resolutions this book is about.


Definition of a planet >>>>

The upper limit of a planet (the difference between a star and a planet) is easy to understand. When an object is massive enough to sustain fusion it is called a star (or a brown dwarf star in the lower end) and if not it is a planet. The lower limit is more difficult and this is what is under dispute. In Prague in the summer of 2006 a decision was made in the form of resolutions as to what is and is not a planet and Pluto was demoted from being a planet to being a dwarf planet. It was also understood that a dwarf planet is not a real planet.

In general the planet scientists and the planet geologists wanted a simple definition that would be useful for the work that they were doing. The definition they suggested in a pre study mirrored the definition for the upper limit as is given below in the two points below.

1. A planet had to orbit the sun.

2. It had to be able to crush itself into a roundish shape - that is it had to be in hydrostatic equilibrium.

Even though it is sometimes difficult to determine what is round you can define an exact mass (4% of Pluto's mass) that correspond to the magic limit of hydrostatic equilibrium. This is an important distinction because with hydrostatic equilibrium comes the ability to have an atmosphere, sustain life and exhibit geological activity.

If this was the final definition of a planet Pluto would still be a planet.

However, this definition was not acceptable to many other types of Astronomers who felt that a Planet was something very special that had to dominate its part of space so an additional requirement was added. I should say that there were apparently also other political reasons and offended parties that caused many Astronomers to reject the first definition.

3. A planet had to have cleared the neighborhood around its orbit of other objects.

A planet which fulfills the first two requirements but not the third was to be called a dwarf planet, and dwarf planets were not to be considered real planets according to the same resolution. It should be noted that the third criteria mostly demoted Pluto to the status of being a non-planet, but not with absolute certainty. For example, you could still claim that Pluto had cleared its orbit of other objects and you could claim that Neptune had not. To make it clear that Pluto was not a planet yet another resolution was added that specifically stated that Pluto was not a planet.

Since many "planets" of various sizes (including Giant Planets) found in other solar systems does not seem to have cleared their orbit of other objects the third requirement/resolution is causing quite a bit of a problem for scientists working with Exo-Planets. For example, if Mars or even Earth was located where Pluto is they would probably not be called planets using the final IAU definition (thereof my provocative title). There even seems to be giant planets that are dwarf planets and not planets. What would call a giant planet which is a dwarf planet? That is quite a bit of an oxymoron. In addition, one day we might find large planets with life which aren't planets according to the IAU definition. In summary the IAU definition seems to have been outdated already.


Concluding thoughts

This book considers both sides of the issue and highlights how complicated the question about Pluto really is. It suggests that a planet is defined (as originally intended by the pre study group) as an object large enough to be in hydrostatic equilibrium, and that we then classify planets into classes just like we do for stars. Pluto would be a dwarf planet but still a planet. In my opinion this is the only reasonable approach, hands down. Modern planetary science and the search for exo-planets demand it. I should add that I also thought that the three appendixes, the end notes, and the index were very helpful.

In short, this was a surprisingly engaging and interesting book. I highly recommend this book to anyone who has the slightest interest in Astronomy.

At it's heart `The Case for Pluto' is simply a biography of a planet. This looks at the history of the planet, how it was discovered and the events surrounding that, how it's physical composition was worked out and the developments around it's designation as planet or dwarf-planet and the subsequent controversy over it's status. This is very easy to read and although a science book the ideas and terms used are easy to grasp and no complex equations or ideas are included to confuse the general reader. The modern day arguments over the planets status seem rather petty and childish and although I am sure this is an important issue for astronomers, you do wonder if they have anything else to worry about! There is a colour middle plate section with various photos of planets and moons, as well as artists impressions of Pluto and some outer edge areas of the solar system. There are also three appendices, one which looks at the IAU resolutions relating to what qualifies as a planet or not, some basic statistics about the planets in the solar system and frequently asked questions by kids. All in all this is a clear and engaging book and whilst the naming controversy still lingers, this book is best read as an account of a beloved planet in our solar system that has a rich and interesting history.

Feel free to check out my blog which can be found on my profile page.

Alan Boyle has provided us with a fascinating story. The first half of his book leads up to the discovery of Pluto in 1930 and the subsequent scientific investigations into the nature of the ninth planet of our solar system. The second half of his book deals with the politics of the 2006 vote by members of the International Astronomical Union (IAU) to define the word "planet." This vote was in part precipitated by the 2005 discovery of Xena, now named Eris, a planet larger than Pluto which orbits the sun at a maximum distance of about 100 astronomical units, twice the distance of Pluto from the Sun.

Ernest Rutherford, the great nuclear physicist, discoverer of the atomic nucleus, is quoted as saying "All science is either physics or stamp collecting." Between the great discoveries of science there is a lot of measuring and cataloging to be done. Nuclear physicists take an approach different from that of the IAU. The periodic table is open ended. As we discover new elements, we add them to the table, even those on the far reaches having very short half lives. A child can still dream of discovering a new element.

By contrast, as explained by Boyle, the IAU has declared that the planetary solar system is complete at eight planets. It is no surprise that Neil deGrasse Tyson, the director of the Hayden Planetarium in New York, is said to get hate mail from third graders. He and the IAU have told the children of the world that they cannot discover a new planet, and by the way, their favorite planet no longer counts. What a terrible message.

Is Pluto a planet? The IAU definition found in this book says that a planet is a celestial body that:
- is in orbit around the Sun,
- has sufficient mass so that it assumes a hydrostatic equilibrium (nearly round) shape, and
- has "cleared the neighborhood" around its orbit.

Pluto seems to meet the definition of a planet depending on what you mean by "cleared the neighborhoood," but does the Earth? Even though this definition was crafted to include the Earth as a planet, I do not see that the Earth has "cleared the neighborhood" around its orbit. An estimate of the number of Earth-crossing asteroids includes 1500 larger than one kilometer and 135,000 larger than 100 meters in diameter. Has the Earth cleared its neighborhood? Ask the dinosaurs who had one of these objects fall on their heads 60 million years ago.

In addition, the Earth has a large body which co-inhabits its orbit around the Sun. We call it the Moon.

What about the Moon? It is not a planet because it orbits the Earth, not the Sun. Or does it? Viewed from the Earth, the Moon does orbit the Earth. However, the geocentric solar system was dispelled in 1543 by Copernicus. (See, for example, The Book Nobody Read: Chasing the Revolutions of Nicolaus Copernicus.) Viewed from the Sun, the orbit of the Earth traces a wavy ellipse. The undulations result from the gravitational influence of the Moon. What about the Moon's orbit? It too traces a wavy line. The Moon's orbit never loops back over its own path. This Earth-Moon system behavior is unique in the solar system. The Moon orbits the Sun just as the Earth does. The two form a co-planetary system. If the Earth is a planet by the IAU definition, then so is the Moon.

I conclude that Pluto is still our ninth planet and will remain so. However, the IAU's decision brings up another question. What will we call it, planet or not, if an Earth-sized or larger planet is discovered at the edges of the solar system?

For those who wish to read another well-written work on Pluto by an author with a different opinion, I suggest "Is Pluto a Planet?: A Historical Journey through the Solar System."

Maybe I'm just a Luddite, but I just can't get over the demotion of our pal Pluto. Alan Boyle's "Case for Pluto" is perfect for nerds like me who still have the need to obsess over the loss of our ninth planet. His writing is fascinating and informative, yet upbeat and irreverent. Boyle provides a perfect balance of science, history, and politics and shows how they all weave together into what most of us have always assumed were "facts". He shows that that "fact" is, Pluto hasn't changed at all (as far as we can tell) since its discovery, only we have changed.

Is "Case for Pluto" for everyone? Uh, probably not. But I was pleasantly surprised to see that if I left it lying around the house long enough two more bookmarks burrowed into the book: both my wife and my mother picked it up and gave it a try. One of my kids also flipped through it and decided that it fully confirmed that their dad is a dork.

So if you're like me, still enraged by poor Pluto's treatment and completely comfortable with your inner dork, then "Case for Pluto" is for you!

Boyle's The Case for Pluto is a friendly little (basically novella-size) science book that provides a concise, enjoyable layperson's overview of the history of Pluto and the current controversy over its "demotion" as a planet. As such, it covers the highlights one would expect, the planet's discovery (based on faulty thinking), its naming (with help from a young girl), its shrinking dimensions as our instruments for observing it steadily improved, the explosive impact on Pluto of discovering even larger bodies beyond it in the Kuiper Belt, the heated conference debate on what constitutes a planet and whether Pluto still fits, and the current NASA mission en route to the planet (New Horizons).
Despite its slim size, therefore, the book gets pretty much everything in there and does so in an easy-to-understand scientifically literate fashion. The prose is crisp and clear, the book isn't dumbed down, the color inserts are both beautiful and instructive, and Boyle spends enough time as he needs to and no more on any particular topic for the reader to come to a solid if not thorough understanding of that topic. He also broadens beyond Pluto when needed to offer context, quickly covering the history of planetary discovery, again hitting the highlights--the discovery of Uranus and Neptune, the use of mathematics to predict planets, the mistaken search for Vulcan inside the orbit of Mercury, the labeling of Ceres a planet and then its subsequent demotion, etc. Personalities, whether of older astronomers, such as Lowell or Thombaugh, or newer ones such as Mike Brown, are as concisely presented as the science. Some might argue Boyle spends a bit too long on the politics and the infighting during the conference which was to determine the definition of a planet and Pluto's place, and I admit I felt that section could use a small amount of cutting, but the fact that science is done by humans, with all their human qualities, flaws, uncertainties, etc. I think is valuable for a lay audience to see. This section also did an excellent job of showing the two different ways of viewing the solar system, and while he could have presented these in another manner, doing so here makes the methods both more concrete and more humanized.
Boyle has a clear fondness for Pluto, but it never gets in the way of the solid reportage. The Case for Pluto makes its case cleanly, concisely, warmly, and enjoyably, with the reader learning more and, in the best tradition of such little books, wanting to learn still more. The book whets the appetite for more detail and a fuller examination and thus succeeds quite well. Recommended.

The Case for Pluto
by Alan Boyle
Non-Fiction


The story of Pluto is a long one. It is a tale of discoveries, hate mail from kindergardeners, plaques in the middle of corn fields, and a silent war between countless bands of third graders, and the International Astronomy Union. This book tells about Pluto's story of demoted planet hood, and the massive uproar of small children because the only planet that they could have sympathy for was too small. As astronomers and grade schoolers alike line up to defend our minute rocky planet, we begin to learn more about the case for Pluto.

This is personally one of my favorite books about Pluto. This book tells small stories about defending Pluto's planet status, like the Battle of Prague, which was a debate to among the IAU whether to demote Pluto of it's planet status or not, and the bet between Sedna and Brown. Sedna tried to prove that Planet X doesn't exist, and Brown tried to find it, winner gets a case of champagne. This book also has very simple context, making it easy for anyone to pick up, start reading, and not easily get confused. It also is very new, making these stories and facts recent, and it has some very detailed laminated photos of Pluto, Charon and some other parts of the Solar System, which was a very nice add on.


I give this book a nine out of ten. Most books like this only give facts, much like Is Pluto a Planet? did. This book listed important events, like the Battle of Prague. This book is for anyone who is interested in astronomy or Pluto's little problem.
Pluto isn't the ninth of the nine planets, it is the first of many.

Colin

Before I read Alan Boyle's "The Case For Pluto: How a Little Planet Made a Big Difference," I didn't have a strong opinion on whether or not the diminutive body on the outskirts of the Solar System continued to be called a "planet." I had read newspaper articles about the International Astronomical Union's 2006 decision to re-define what a "planet" was, and the consequent "demotion" of Pluto from planetary status. But I knew little about the ongoing deluxe flap that resulted from the IAU's announcement. Now that I've read Mr. Boyle's book, I have to admit that I'm still pretty ambivalent about Pluto's status. To me, it's just a name, and it isn't worth the huge controversy that still rages. However, thanks to Mr. Boyle's fascinating, topical and highly readable volume, I now know much more about the issue, and I also learned a lot about recent developments in Solar System exploration. I'll never look at the Sun and its retinue of attendant objects the same way as I used to.

"The Case For Pluto" is a petite little book about the size of a mass-market paperback, illustrated with several black-and-white photos and an eight-page color insert. It's well-footnoted, and includes a useful six-page bibliography. The book begins with the story of the key discoveries of Copernicus, Galileo and Kepler that laid the foundation for understanding the objects in the Solar System and their motions. Percival Lowell's futile search for "Planet X," the unseen body that was thought to be disturbing the orbit of Neptune (the outermost planet known at the time), gets a full chapter. Mr. Boyle then describes how young Clyde Tombaugh continued the search after Lowell's death. The countless hours Tombaugh spent staring into a blink comparator culminated, on February 18, 1930, in his discovery of the object that he named "Pluto." But it soon became clear that Pluto was not "Planet X"--it was not massive enough to cause the observed (and later found to be erroneous) perturbations of Neptune's orbit. There must be something else out there. And, sure enough, there is. Mr. Boyle discusses, in exceptional detail, recent discoveries of other Pluto-like objects beyond Neptune. Three have been found so far; one of them is even larger than Pluto. Astronomers now find the outer Solar System to be a very interesting place.

Mr. Boyle presents a fair, well-balanced discussion of the issues regarding Pluto's status, even though he clearly comes down on the side of planethood for the popular little body. You'll find enough information in "The Case For Pluto" to form your own educated opinion. I tend to agree with the IAU's decision that it does not make the cut. Here's an idea I didn't see mentioned in the pro and con arguments: Astronomers call Jupiter's four largest moons (Ganymede, Callisto, Io and Europa) the "Galilean Satellites," after the 17th century astronomer who first observed them. Why not use the term "Tombaugh Objects" for all the small bodies between Neptune and the Kuiper Belt, and name Pluto as the first example of this new class of Solar System objects? Of course, Mr. Boyle shows that it's not that simple...

Regardless of what you think about the status of either the last of the Solar System's planets to be discovered, or the first of a new class of objects beyond Neptune, you should enjoy and learn from "The Case For Pluto." I recommend it highly to every armchair astronomer and science geek, and to curious readers who just want to find out more about the Universe they live in.

I picked out this book to read because I am a scientist (chemist) and it looked like an interesting read for a scientist. What I learned from reading this book was quite surprising. I thought this book was going to be about the discovery of Pluto and what we currently know about it-WRONG! Instead this book is about how Pluto became the center of an uproar within the astronomical community over exactly what Pluto was- a planet, a dwarf planet or just part of the Kuiper Belt. For astronomers this was a very big deal. For the non astronomer, especially school children, trying to downgrade the lovable little Pluto from being a planet became quite a public relations problem.

Here's some background- in the mid 1850's after Neptune was discovered, the race was on to find planets beyond Neptune. In 1930, Clyde Tombaugh found a planet beyond Neptune and it was named by a child as Pluto. (Disney, of course, later created a character named Pluto further endearing the little planet to children.) In the 1950's, it was theorized by another astronomer that Pluto wasn't a planet at all- it was part of the Kuiper Belt- that vast, icy, cold world beyond Neptune where comets that frequently appear come from. Pluto had always been a bit of an outcast among the other planets because of it's very small size, far distance away and icy nature. The Kuiper Belt theory began the movement of the IAU (International Astronomical Union) to kick Pluto out of the planet lineup and name it as a Kuiper object. This was the beginning of a fifty year fight over how to categorize Pluto. (By the way, I'm not going to give away the ending!). If this were all the book was about, I would have rated it lower. But it contained so much more.

The fight over how to categorize Pluto, showcases the scientific process brilliantly and how it was affected by the "Pluto as a planet" loving faction of non-astronomers. But more importantly, the argument over whether Pluto was a planet or not created a framework for how future discoveries- as telescopes become even more powerful- would be labelled and it also provided a better understanding of the different parts of our solar system we currently know about. There are the terrestrial planets such as Mars, Mercury and the Earth, the gaseous planets such as Venus, and beyond Neptune a world we have just begun to really investigate- the Kuiper belt and the even farther world of the Oort Cloud where non frequent appearing comets such as Halle-Bopp come from. And also, where in the framework of our solar system should asteroids large enough to be planets go? It all came down to what the qualifications for being a planet are thus allowing the future categorization of objects we have yet to discover and objects in our solar system we currently know about such as large asteroids in the asteroid belt.

I don't know if I've done justice to this book in this review (I hope I have), but I hope I've spurred the interest of anyone inclined toward this topic to read this book as well as to prevent folks who don't want to read about such topics from buying the book. I personally enjoyed the book but believe it is for a select audience and that's for everyone to figure out for themselves. The book is very well written given the subject material and as insignificant as it may sound, this is a beautiful little book. It is smaller than the normal book- almost pocket sized- comes with a beautiful cover and inner colour plates and embossed all over the cover is a logo for Pluto using the letter P and L. I think it would make a very nice gift for the right person. So overall I give it a thumbs up and four stars.