The Demise of Pluto

The planet, not the cartoon dog.

Kid actually took Mike Brown’s class and learned about the drama first-handedly. Years after she told me the story, I bumped into this book. Could it be nerdy and boring?

I smiled, laughed, and chuckled. My eyes misted several times. I couldn’t put it down and finish the book in 4 days. For an academic geek, Mike Brown is a talented writer and probably a good teacher and, by definition, an entertainer.

The Solar system has eight planets, an asteroid belt, and a Kuiper belt very far away. That Kuiper belt has many objects of various sizes and shapes. The largest one, discovered long time ago, is Pluto. Mike Brown discovered several more, including Eris, once considered another planet. But is it? Or even, are they? No. They are not planets, just larger members of the Kuiper belt.

I was once fascinated by the starry sky. I bought paper-based star charts and stared at the sky for hours. I have never graduated to telescopes, mostly for financial reasons and also for not having lived without severe light pollutions. What would happen to me if I grew up in a rural area? Would I grew up oblivious to those light dots, or an astronomer?

I would have never known. Is it fate that Mike Brown, and many other astronomers, was born the right place and right time? Otherwise, the celestial objects wouldn’t have shown up, or the technologies wouldn’t have matured enough. Mike Brown is probably more brilliant as a software engineer than an astronomer.

The best parts of the book were about Lilah, his new born daughter who were taught sign language. When they were watching the moon at night, a cloud briefly obscured the moon, Lilah asked her dad to bring it back. When the moon came back out, she thanked her dad for it with a smile, all in signs. I was smiling so wide reading that. Hey, I am a dad with daughters too.