INTERVIEW: Dr. Mike Brown, Pluto Killer

Brown represents only one side of a very much ongoing debate over the status of Pluto and definition of planet, yet he misrepresents his point of view as the only legimitate one in the astronomy community.

In his blog "Mike Brown's Planets," Brown has repeatedly denied that a debate even exists, claiming over and over again that everyone has accepted the "new" eight-planet solar system when this is completely untrue. Several hundred professional astronomers signed a formal petition rejecting the IAU decision.

Many of these astronomers including New Horizons Principal Investigator Dr. Alan Stern, Dr. Mark Sykes, Dr. David Morrison, Dr. David Grinspoon, and Dr. Hal Weaver decided to boycott this year's IAU General Assembly because in spite of their multiple requests, the IAU leadership adamantly refused to reopen discussion on the continuing controversy over planet definition.

Because Brown represents only one side of this debate yet misleadingly repeats over and over that there is no debate, it is a tremendous disservice to the public to interview him without interviewing another astronomer representing the other side of this debate, namely support for the geophysical definition of planet (which defines a planet as any non-self-luminous spheroidal body orbiting a star). Members of the public deserve to know that the 2006 IAU decision is not a done deal, and that Pluto has never been "killed" as a planet. If you do not sponsor a speaker representing this view, many will be misled into believing Brown is portraying the facts as opposed to one interpretation of the facts.

The fact that this debate remains ongoing can be seen from the popularity of Alan Boyle's new book The Case for Pluto and Pluto Confidential, a book by two astronomers, Laurence A. Marshall and Stephen P. Maran, who represent both sides of this controversy.

The persistence of the debate is also very evident in the audio transcripts of the Great Planet Debate, held at the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Lab in Laurel, MD in August 2008, specifically in response to the problematic 2006 IAU General Assembly. Many of the astronomers mentioned above were key speakers at that event, whose proceedings can be found by Googling "Great Planet Debate." I urge all to take the time to listen to this very engaging discussion, which was conducted on a professional level and addressed all points of view regarding the question of "What Is A Planet."

Brown is just plain wrong in saying "most people are over it" regarding Pluto's wrongful demotion. This is nothing more than his personal state of denial. One look at the many forums and astronomy groups on the Internet will show that there are many, many people, including those with long term involvement in astronomy, who reject the IAU decision. We will get planet Pluto reinstated and dwarf planets rightly classified as a third class of planets.