Word: kuiper
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Dates: during 1950-1959
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Last week Astronomer Gerard Peter Kuiper (rhymes with piper) of the University of Chicago made another move toward demoting Pluto. Recent observations have proved that its period of rotation on its own axis is more than six days (TIME, Feb. 6). For a planet, says Scientist Kuiper, this is too slow...
...Kuiper thinks that Pluto is an escaped satellite that once revolved around Neptune. The other satellites of Neptune, Triton and Nereid, may have escaped too, but eventually were recaptured. They tangled with the gaseous envelope that still surrounded the mother planet and were reduced again to the satellite status. Pluto, however, managed to keep its freedom until the sun had dissipated most of Neptune's gaseous envelope. Now it is probably safe for the life of the solar system...
Servile Birth. If Pluto were a real planet, says Dr. Kuiper, its orbit could not be so eccentric. Best proof, however, of Pluto's humble origin is its slow rotation. Planetary satellites turn only fast enough to present the same face to their planet. The earth's moon does this, rotating once for each turn around its orbit. Dr. Kuiper believes that Pluto used to revolve around Neptune once in about 6½ days, rotating on its own axis in the same period. Now, on its lonely orbit around the sun, it rotates just as fast as when...
...Kuiper, one of the world's greatest astronomers, bases his theory on the observations that Pluto takes too long--six and a half days--to describe an orbit "too eccentric for a planet," and is much too small to deserve the title of planet...
...Robert Wheeler Willson Professor of Applied Astronomy, said, "I must say, it sounds like rather a cute idea." Bok praised Kuiper as "the custodian of the Solar System. Whenever he says something, you'd better listen to him." Bok added, "Although Kuiper's theory makes a good deal of sense, I still consider Pluto as a genuine planet. It certainly is queer duck, though...