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By Steven J. Dick

Astronomical discovery comprises greater than detecting whatever formerly unseen. The reclassification of Pluto as a dwarf planet in 2006, and the debate it generated, indicates that discovery is a fancy and ongoing technique - one comprising a variety of levels of study, interpretation, and knowing. starting from Galileo's remark of Jupiter's satellites, Saturn's earrings, and big name clusters, to Herschel's nebulae and the fashionable discovery of quasars and pulsars, Steven J. Dick's finished background identifies the concept that of "extended discovery" because the engine of growth in astronomy. The textual content lines greater than four hundred years of telescopic commentary, exploring how the sign discoveries of latest astronomical items relate to and tell each other, and why controversies corresponding to Pluto's reclassification are standard within the box. the quantity is entire with a close category approach for recognized sessions of astronomical gadgets, delivering scholars, researchers, and novice observers a important reference and consultant.

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Extra info for Discovery and Classification in Astronomy: Controversy and Consensus

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The possibility of a faint background star coincidentally adjacent to Pluto was considered, and an examination of the Palomar Sky Survey actually showed one that was close, but not close enough. At this point the suspicion of a Plutonian satellite became stronger, strong enough that Christy told his colleague and supervisor, Robert S. 11 In order to verify this conjecture, the following day, June 23, Christy examined plates taken with the 61-inch telescope in 1965 and 1971 for the purpose of measuring the diameter of Pluto, and in 1970 for a project to measure the motion of the center of the planet.

Stern argued that the issue should not be a matter of democracy, but of a physical test: if an object was big enough to fuse hydrogen it was a star, if it was too small to be round by virtue of gravity and hydrostatic equilibrium, it was not a planet. Everything in between was a planet. Marsden argued that Pluto was a member of the Kuiper Belt, but was willing to grant it dual status as both a major planet and a minor planet, in accordance with his previous suggestion. ). Levy argued that science wasn’t just for scientists or taxonomists, but for people, and normal people considered Pluto a planet.

As we shall detail in Chapter 2, the discovery of many more Trans-Neptunian objects followed, all slightly smaller than Pluto. By early 1999, 17 18 Part I. Entrée more than 130 Trans-Neptunian objects were known. It was only a matter of time before one larger than Pluto would be discovered. The debate over the status of Pluto as a planet began to heat up in 1998 when the International Astronomical Union (IAU), the arbiter in all such matters, got involved. In late 1998 Brian Marsden, director of the IAU’s Central Bureau for Astronomical Telegrams and the Minor Planet Center, located at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, proposed a dual designation for Pluto as both a planet and a minor planet.

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