Fight for Pluto !, A Campaign to Reverse the Unjust Demotion Options

[mars loon]

Dear Friends,

Today I am extremely dissapointed that the Pluto Demoters have triumphed.

I respect their opinion, but disagree with it.

I strongly agree with Alan Stern's statement calling it "absurd" that only 424 astronomers were allowed to vote, out of some 10,000 professional astronomers around the globe.

This tiny group is clearly not at all representative by mathematics alone.

I believe we should formulate a plan to overturn this unjust decision and return Pluto to full planetary status, and as the first member of a third catagory of planets, Xena being number two. Thus a total of 10 Planets in our Solar System

Please respond if you agree that Pluto should be restored as a planet.

ken

Ken Kremer
Amateur Astronomers Association of Princeton
Program Chairman

[JRehling]

I believe we should formulate a plan to overturn this unjust decision and return Pluto to full planetary status, and as the first member of a third catagory of planets, Xena being number two. Thus a total of 10 Planets in our Solar System

You might want to carefully consider what, if any, counterproposal you make axiomatic to your movement. You might find that a majority support Pluto's planethood, but split with you on other subissues. Or, maybe you have already carefully considered the politics of it. Cheers, in any case.

[Stephen]

You might want to carefully consider what, if any, counterproposal you make axiomatic to your movement. You might find that a majority support Pluto's planethood, but split with you on other subissues. Or, maybe you have already carefully considered the politics of it.

Which begs the question I have yet to get a straight answer to: why are so many astronomers (and maybe layfolk too) so keen to restrict the number of planets to a select few and what is the rationale behind it?

Even those in favour of including Pluto seem less than keen to widen the definition too far. Astronomers at the conference might have quibbled over whether there should be eight, nine or a dozen, but most if not all seemed to want some kind of cap.

Yet these same astronomers seem quite happy to accept that the terms "moon", "star", and "galaxy" should have no such limit. If there can be dozens of moons in the Solar System why can't that same solar system have dozens of planets?

What is the rationale for restricting the number of planets?

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Stephen