Saturday, March 5, 2011

LOOKING FORWARD TO: HOW I KILLED PLUTO AND WHY IT HAD IT COMING, NON-FICTION, BY MIKE BROWN

Today NPR interviewed astronomer Mike Brown, whose discovery almost came to be the 10th planet. It was bigger than Pluto, but new observations showed that hundreds more similar-sized objects could be found. Brown realized that he couldn't let his discovery become a planet. Instead, he campaigned successfully to have Pluto demoted from planetary status. This has become a new verb: when you're demoted or fired, you're "plutoed."

I love popular astronomy books, and I've put this on hold at the library. In the meantime, let's applaud Mike Brown (or more likely his publisher) for the coolest title of the year.

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