Review - Is Pluto a Planet

Is Pluto a Planet? A Historical Journey through the Solar System by David A. Weintraub; Princeton University Press, Princeton, New Jersey; (paper) $18.95; 2008.

As NASA’s New Horizon’s spacecraft continues its long-distance trek, the hullabaloo over Pluto being de-classified as a planet continues. You’ll find an engaging account here of what is and what is not a planet.

The author is a professor of astronomy at Vanderbilt University and tells the tale of just what is the definition of a planet in the first place – and how that term has changed over time. As he writes: "This question appears so simple – clearly the answer is either yes or no – yet the simplicity if misleading."

Weintraub puts it all together in a nicely written and authoritative book that covers the historical, philosophical, and astronomical trappings of dealing with our own solar system. What’s more, the information he has assembled allows the reader to decide whether Pluto is indeed a planet – or some other status.

The book also provides background on other recent discoveries in our outer solar system.

Weintraub explains that it’s time to start teaching youngsters something more complicated, with more depth of meaning, that the simple memory line that has the first letter of our family of planets: My Very Earthly Mother Just Served Us Nasty Pizza.

The book ends with a section on what we do know about Pluto – sure to change when the first spacecraft from Earth visits that world in July 2015 before heading deeper into the Kuiper belt of icy rocky objects on the planetary frontier.

For more information on this book, go to:
http://press.princeton.edu/titles/8247.html