We demand rigidly defined areas of doubt and uncertainty!

I hope no one minds, but I’m going to get a little bit political today. I usually try to keep that sort of stuff off the blog, but I cannot ignore the great injustice which is being done.

Next week the General Assembly of the International Astronomical Union will meet in Prague to discuss what it means to be a planet. They assembled a panel to provide advice, and they have basically blown the walls down, recommending that the number of planets be upped to 12, including Ceres (the asteroid), Charon (Pluto’s largest moon), and…get ready for this…2003 UB313 (affectionately known as Xena, named after the warrior princess).

Lest you think that the madness will end there, recognize that Pluto, Charon, and 2003 UB 313 are merely three out of what could be thousands of Kuiper-Belt Objects (KBOs). The Kuiper-Belt is the area immediately outside Neptune’s orbit, stretching from around 30 AU to 50 AU from the Sun. That space contains a large number of minor planets bearing a striking resemblance to Pluto. 800 have been discovered so far (almost all in the last 15 years) and more are found every year. Most are significantly smaller than Pluto, but Xena is actually larger, and a number of others are over 1000 km in diameter (Pluto is around 2300).

These “planets” are quite different than the 8 regular planets. They are far smaller than even Mercury (around 4900 km). They have orbits far more eccentric than any planet, tilted almost 20 degrees off the plane the rest of the planets stick close to, and with orbits that (in the case of Pluto and others) actually bring them closer Neptune and then shoot them far back out. They suffer from the same slow erosion by solar wind that characterizes comets – if you moved most KBOs closer to the sun, they would have tails.

In the end this was a political decision – they felt it would cause discomfort for people to face up to the fact that Pluto should never have been classified as a planet, and now that other objects had been found to demonstrate that point, the only “solution” was to let them in, too. Ultimately, it just cheapens the whole thing – being a planet used to mean something, y’know? If this IAU change goes through, soon there will be dozens of planets and the whole concept will be meaningless.

Anyways, since this is a music blog, let’s bring this back to some songs. First, a couple educational ones, to help us understand our place in the universe:

Galaxy Song – Monty Python
Why Does the Sun Shine? – They Might Be Giants

And a couple others on the subject of extra-terrestrial bodies:

Galaxies – Laura Veirs
Stars – Hum
Randy Described Eternity – Built to Spill

Finally, a portion of the BBC radio series of The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy with the computer which was built to finally answer the Ultimate Question of life, the universe, and everything.

Life, the Universe, and Everything – The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy

I cannot recommend strongly enough that you obtain for yourself a copy of the original 12 episode radio series, the origin of all things Hitchhiker and still by far the best version. If you’ve read the books, seen the movie, seen the play, read the comics, or played the game but have never heard the radio series, you have no idea what you’re missing. In fact, if you’ve only seen the movie, please understand that it is NOTHING like the radio series. Speaking of, there’s a great (though perhaps a little too intense) review of the movie here.

Any other Hitchhiker fans out there: what are your favorite scenes? The Deep Thought section is one of my favorites, but the seance/”why does the Earthman like tea” scene is probably my favorite.