Pluto: The fightback begins
2006-09-01 13:31
Paris - Only a week after Pluto was stripped of its status as a full-fledged planet of the solar system, rebel astronomers have launched a campaign to have it restored in pomp and glory.
A petition already signed by more than 300 professional researchers is circulating among the astronomical community, attacking the International Astronomical Union (IAU) decision that expelled Pluto from the solar system's A-list and declared it a "dwarf planet".
"We as planetary scientists and astronomers do not agree with the IAU's definition of a planet, nor will we use it. A better definition is needed," says the petition, placed on the web at (www.ipetitions.com).
The petition organiser, Mark Sykes, who is director of the Planetary Science Institute in Tucson, Arizona, said the IAU definition of a planet "does not meet fundamental scientific standards and should be set aside".
"A more open process, involving a broader cross-section of the community engaged in planetary studies of our own solar system and others should be undertaken," Sykes said.
The British weekly magazine New Scientist, in a news item posted on its website on Friday, said the rebels intend to stage a conference next year that will fix the definition of a planet.
As many as 1 000 astronomers will attend, they hope.
A co-sponsor of the petition is Alan Stern, executive director of the Centre for Space Exploration Policy Research at the US Southwest Research Institute.
Stern heads Nasa's New Horizons mission to Pluto. An unmanned spacecraft - which also bears some of the ashes of US astronomer Clyde Tombaugh, who discovered Pluto in 1930 - blasted off in January this year, months before the IAU decision that relegated Pluto's status.
Stern said "only about 428" of the IAU's nearly 10 000 members were involved in the vote at the IAU's assembly in Prague last Friday.
That tally is barely more than the number of people who signed the protest petition within the first five days of its being launched, he said.
The IAU declared on August 24 that the solar system comprised eight planets: Mercury, Earth, Venus, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune.
Pluto's status had been contested for many years by astronomers who said its tiny size, highly eccentric orbit and orbital plane precluded it from joining the other acknowledged planets.
The IAU assigned Pluto and other large objects to a new category - "dwarf planet".