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April 18th, 2009

April 18th: Why Isn’t Pluto a Planet?

 

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Date: April 18, 2009

 

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Title: Why Isn’t Pluto a Planet?

Podcaster: The Astronomy Cast team of Fraser Cain and Dr. Pamela Gay

Organization: Astronomy Cast
Description: This is our second contribution to 365 Days of Astronomy. This time, we’re going to give you a short explainer on why Pluto is no longer a planet. If you’re friends have cornered and asking you technical questions on why Pluto isn’t a planet, you can point them here and let me and Pamela set them straight.

Bio: Fraser Cain is the publisher of Universe Today and Dr. Pamela Gay is a professor at Southern Illinois University-Edwardsville. They team up to do Astronomy Cast, a weekly facts-based journey through the cosmos.

Today’s Sponsor: This episode of “365 Days of Astronomy” is sponsored by AAS.

Transcript:

***Transcript coming soon.***

End of podcast:

365 Days of Astronomy
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The 365 Days of Astronomy Podcast is produced by the New Media Working Group of the International Year of Astronomy 2009. Audio post-production by Preston Gibson. Bandwidth donated by libsyn.com and wizzard media. Web design by Clockwork Active Media Systems. You may reproduce and distribute this audio for non-commercial purposes. Please consider supporting the podcast with a few dollars (or Euros!). Visit us on the web at 365DaysOfAstronomy.org or email us at info@365DaysOfAstronomy.org. Until tomorrow…goodbye.

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3 Responses to “April 18th: Why Isn’t Pluto a Planet?”

  1. David Frankis Apr 18th, 2009

    Great podcast (and good catch on the IAU committees)!

    I just wanted to say I think Mike Brown would be horrified by your pronunciation of Makemake. I won’t try to transliterate here, but suggest you go to the Wikipedia page on Makemake (the Polynesian deity, not the dwarf planet) and listen to the sound file there.

    David (vagueofgodalming)

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  3. Laurel Kornfeld Apr 23rd, 2009

    Pluto is very much a planet, and I encourage everyone to hear both sides of this ongoing debate before blindly accepting one interpretation as fact. Hundreds of professional astronomers led by Dr. Alan Stern, Principal Investigator of NASA’s New Horizons mission to Pluto, have formally rejected the demotion of Pluto, which was done by only four percent of the IAU. Stern and like-minded scientists favor a broader planet definition that includes any non-self-luminous spheroidal body orbiting a star. That gives our solar system 13 planets: Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Ceres, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune, Pluto, Haumea, Makemake, and Eris.

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