Extra Credit Assignment 1
Perhaps one of the greatest aspects of modern astronomy was the "Great Pluto War". Astronomers had been looking for "Planet X" for decades before Clyde W. Tombaugh finally discovered Pluto in 1930, and until this decade, textbooks and other references listed Pluto correctly as the ninth planet in our solar system. Pluto's planethood status has been
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March 19, 1915-The first known images of Pluto on photographic plates are taken.
February 18, 1930-Lowell Observatory’s Clyde Tombaugh notices a moving object, on photographic plates he created the previous month, that he believes is a planet.
March 13, 1930-Discovery of this body was sent as a telegraph message to Harvard College Observatory.
March 24, 1930-Planet X is officially named Pluto, after the suggestion is made by eleven-year-old Venetia Burney of Oxford, England, and a unanimous vote is cast.
May 1, 1930-The name Pluto is officially announced to the world.
1950’s-Scientists suggest that Pluto is possibly a moon orbiting Neptune. This theory is later dismissed.
1955-Pluto is calculated to be roughly the same mass as Earth.
1971-Calculations are adjusted, downgrading Pluto to be the same size as Mars.
1976-Astronomers at the University of Hawaii discover that the albedo (or reflectivity) of Pluto’s surface is extremely bright and therefore decide that Pluto cannot be more than 1% of Earth’s size.
1978-James Christy discovers a moon that satellites Pluto, and it is named Charon.
1985-Pluto’s atmosphere is discovered during an occultation.
1989-A second occultation emphasizes the findings of the previous one. Pluto’s atmosphere is said to be made up of nitrogen, methane, and carbon dioxide.
1989-The original assumption that Pluto’s gravitational pull was disturbing Uranus’ orbit is proved wrong, and is instead attributed to the fact that Neptune is larger than was previously believed.
1992-It is suggested that Pluto is not a planet, but in fact an asteroid that is part of the Kuiper belt.
August 1992-Scientist Robert Staehle contacts Clyde Tombaugh to request permission to visit Pluto.
2000-Hayden Planetarium in New York City officially dismisses Pluto’s planetary status by re-opening with a model containing only 8 planets.
2005-Two smaller moons are discovered.
January 19, 2006-New Horizons, a mission to Pluto, is launched by the U.S. government, with Tombaugh’s ashes on board.
June 21, 2006-The two moons are named Nix and Hydra.
August 18, 2006-The International Astronomical Union endorses a revised definition of a “planet” that consists of :
1) The object must orbit the Sun
2) The object must be massive enough to create its own gravitational pull.
3) The object must be gravitationally dominant, with its own satellites under its gravitational pull. This is known as “clearing the neighborhood” of all objects with a comparable size.
Pluto does not meet the 3rd requirement, and is thus demoted from a planet to a dwarf planet.
Resources:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pluto
http://www.solarviews.com/eng/pluto.htm
http://www.space.com/pluto/
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