Word: pluto
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...These days it's known as a dwarf planet, but until Venetia Phair, 90, was 11, Pluto was dubbed Planet X. When Phair suggested naming the orb after the Roman god of the underworld, her well-connected grandfather helped make it a reality...
...Humans have been looking for other planets ever since astronomers first turned telescopes to the sky. But once we got beyond the nine worlds orbiting our own sun - eight actually, now that Pluto's been busted down to planetoid - we had no luck. The problem is, stars are huge, and by comparison, even big planets are tiny. Squint all you want; you're not going to see them. (See pictures of Earth from space...
...when did we figure out that Pluto is actually pretty minuscule? What you do is, you look at the sky chart of stars and find the day when Pluto moves to intersect the light of a star. You set up observers across the earth, and you each get a different angle of view of Pluto intersecting the light of the star. And when you do this, you can actually map the size of an object in the solar system. Here's what happened. They said, "O.K., here's a star that's going to get really close, and Pluto...
...rebuilt the Hayden Planetarium between 1997 and 2000 at great expense. There was new science that needed to go in the facility, and you want the most reliable, longest-shelf-life science you can come up with. So I called in a panel of experts on the status of Pluto. And by the end of the night, it was clear that Pluto's day was over and it was time to rethink the structure and the form of the outer solar system. Our exhibit was that way for a year, and nobody complained about it until it showed...
There wasn't any, "Stop talking smack about Pluto or I'm going to slash your tires"? There were no threats of bodily harm. But there were tongue-in-cheek threats. And most of the schoolchildren were clearly disgruntled, pleading with me to put Pluto back where it belongs, as a planet...