Sorry, Mike Brown, but the Debate Is Not Settled

Sorry, Mike Brown, but the debate over Pluto’s status and what defines a planet is not settled.In response to Illinois’ proud proclamation of March 13 as “Pluto Day,” Dr. Mike Brown, discoverer of Eris and in his own mind, the person who “put the solar system in order by killing Pluto” claims in a National Geographic article of March 11, 2009 that the planet debate is “settled,” that there is no longer “ a vigorous debate” going on about planet definition, and that only a handful of scientists continue to lobby for Pluto’s reinstatement while the rest of astronomers have “moved on.”Brown even goes so far as to condemn the Illinois resolution as “dangerous to public understanding of science.”Talk about denial.At the Isaac Asimov Memorial Debate, held at the American Museum of Natural History on March 10, 2009, a panel of six planetary scientists moderated by Dr. Neil deGrasse Tyson made it abundantly clear that the issue of what constitutes a planet is far from settled--both at the lower end with small objects like Ceres and Pluto and at the upper end with brown dwarfs and sub-brown dwarfs that straddle the boundary between planets and stars.Even dynamicists like Dr. Steve ...