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How I Killed Pluto and Why It Had It Coming
The solar system most of us grew up with included nine planets, with Mercury closest to the sun and Pluto at the outer edge. Then, in 2005, astronomer Mike Brown made the discovery of a a tenth planet, Eris, slightly bigger than Pluto. But instead of its resulting in one more planet being added to our solar system, Brown’s find ignited a firestorm of controversy that riled the usually sedate world of astronomy and launched him into the public eye. The debate culminated in the demotion of Pluto from real planet to the newly coined category of “dwarf” planet. Suddenly Brown was receiving hate mail from schoolchildren and being bombarded by TV reporters—all because of the discovery he had spent years searching for and a lifetime dreaming about.
Filled with both humor and drama, How I Killed Pluto and Why It Had It Coming is Mike Brown’s engaging first-person account of the most tumultuous year in modern astronomy—which he inadvertently caused. As it guides readers through important scientific concepts and inspires us to think more deeply about our place in the cosmos, it is also an entertaining and enlightening personal While Brown sought to expand our understanding of the vast nature of space, his own life was changed in the most immediate, human ways by love, birth, and death. A heartfelt and personal perspective on the demotion of everyone’s favorite farflung planet, How I Killed Pluto and Why It Had It Coming is the book for anyone, young or old, who has ever dreamed of exploring the universe—and who among us hasn’t?
Filled with both humor and drama, How I Killed Pluto and Why It Had It Coming is Mike Brown’s engaging first-person account of the most tumultuous year in modern astronomy—which he inadvertently caused. As it guides readers through important scientific concepts and inspires us to think more deeply about our place in the cosmos, it is also an entertaining and enlightening personal While Brown sought to expand our understanding of the vast nature of space, his own life was changed in the most immediate, human ways by love, birth, and death. A heartfelt and personal perspective on the demotion of everyone’s favorite farflung planet, How I Killed Pluto and Why It Had It Coming is the book for anyone, young or old, who has ever dreamed of exploring the universe—and who among us hasn’t?
267 pages, Hardcover
First published December 7, 2010
About the author
Mike Brown
231 books61 followersNOTE: There is more than one author with this name on Goodreads.
Youth and education
Brown is a Huntsville, Alabama native and graduated from Virgil I. Grissom High School in 1983. Brown earned his A.B. in physics from Princeton University in 1987, where he was a member of the Princeton Tower Club. He did his graduate studies at the University of California, Berkeley where he earned an M.Sc. in astronomy in 1990 and a Ph.D. in astronomy in 1994.
Discoveries
Brown is well-known in the scientific community for his surveys for distant objects orbiting the Sun. His team has discovered many trans-Neptunian objects (TNOs). Particularly notable are Eris, the only TNO discovered that is more massive than Pluto,[2] and is one of a number of dwarf planets in the Solar System; 90377 Sedna, a planetoid thought to be the first observed body belonging to the inner Öpik-Oort cloud; and 90482 Orcus.
Brown's team famously named Eris and its moon Dysnomia with the informal names Xena and Gabrielle, respectively, after the two main characters of Xena: Warrior Princess.
Haumea controversy
Brown and his team also had been observing the dwarf planet Haumea for approximately six months before its announced discovery by José Luis Ortiz Moreno and colleagues from the Sierra Nevada Observatory in Spain. Brown originally indicated his support for Ortiz's team being given credit for the discovery of Haumea. However, further investigation showed that a website containing archives of where Brown's team's telescopes had been pointed while tracking Haumea had been accessed eight times in the three days preceding Ortiz's announcement, by computers with IP addresses that were traced back to the website of the Instituto de Astrofísica de Andalucía (CSIC, Institute of Astrophysics of Andalusia), where Ortiz works, and to e-mail messages sent by Ortiz and his student. These website accesses came a week after Brown had published an abstract for an upcoming conference talk at which he had planned to announce the discovery of Haumea; the abstract referred to Haumea by a code that was the same code used in the online telescope logs; and the Andalusia computers had accessed the logs containing that code directly, as would be the case after an Internet search, without going through the home page or other pages of the archives.[5] When asked about this online activity, Ortiz responded with an email to Brown that suggested Brown was at fault for "hiding objects," and said that "the only reason why we are now exchanging e-mail is because you did not report your object."[6] Brown says that this statement by Ortiz contradicts the accepted scientific practice of analyzing one's research until one is satisfied that it is accurate, then submitting it to peer review prior to any public announcement. However, the MPC only needs precise enough orbit determination on the object in order to provide discovery credit, and Ortiz et al. not only provided the orbit, but "precovery" images of the body in 1957 plates.
The then director of the IAA, José Carlos del Toro, distanced himself from Ortiz, insisting that its researchers have "sole responsibility" for themselves. Brown petitioned the International Astronomical Union to credit his team rather than Ortiz as the discoverers of Haumea. However, no evidence of impropriety was found, and Ortiz et al. were given sole credit for the discovery. Nonetheless, the IAU did accept Brown's suggested name of Haumea, which fit the names of Haumea's two moons, rather than Ortiz's Ataecina.
Honors, awards and accolades
Brown was named one of Time's 100 Influential People of 2006.[7] In 2007 he received Caltech's annual Feynman Prize, Caltech's most prestigious teaching honor. Asteroid 11714 Mikebrown, discovered on 28 April 1998, was named in his honor.
Youth and education
Brown is a Huntsville, Alabama native and graduated from Virgil I. Grissom High School in 1983. Brown earned his A.B. in physics from Princeton University in 1987, where he was a member of the Princeton Tower Club. He did his graduate studies at the University of California, Berkeley where he earned an M.Sc. in astronomy in 1990 and a Ph.D. in astronomy in 1994.
Discoveries
Brown is well-known in the scientific community for his surveys for distant objects orbiting the Sun. His team has discovered many trans-Neptunian objects (TNOs). Particularly notable are Eris, the only TNO discovered that is more massive than Pluto,[2] and is one of a number of dwarf planets in the Solar System; 90377 Sedna, a planetoid thought to be the first observed body belonging to the inner Öpik-Oort cloud; and 90482 Orcus.
Brown's team famously named Eris and its moon Dysnomia with the informal names Xena and Gabrielle, respectively, after the two main characters of Xena: Warrior Princess.
Haumea controversy
Brown and his team also had been observing the dwarf planet Haumea for approximately six months before its announced discovery by José Luis Ortiz Moreno and colleagues from the Sierra Nevada Observatory in Spain. Brown originally indicated his support for Ortiz's team being given credit for the discovery of Haumea. However, further investigation showed that a website containing archives of where Brown's team's telescopes had been pointed while tracking Haumea had been accessed eight times in the three days preceding Ortiz's announcement, by computers with IP addresses that were traced back to the website of the Instituto de Astrofísica de Andalucía (CSIC, Institute of Astrophysics of Andalusia), where Ortiz works, and to e-mail messages sent by Ortiz and his student. These website accesses came a week after Brown had published an abstract for an upcoming conference talk at which he had planned to announce the discovery of Haumea; the abstract referred to Haumea by a code that was the same code used in the online telescope logs; and the Andalusia computers had accessed the logs containing that code directly, as would be the case after an Internet search, without going through the home page or other pages of the archives.[5] When asked about this online activity, Ortiz responded with an email to Brown that suggested Brown was at fault for "hiding objects," and said that "the only reason why we are now exchanging e-mail is because you did not report your object."[6] Brown says that this statement by Ortiz contradicts the accepted scientific practice of analyzing one's research until one is satisfied that it is accurate, then submitting it to peer review prior to any public announcement. However, the MPC only needs precise enough orbit determination on the object in order to provide discovery credit, and Ortiz et al. not only provided the orbit, but "precovery" images of the body in 1957 plates.
The then director of the IAA, José Carlos del Toro, distanced himself from Ortiz, insisting that its researchers have "sole responsibility" for themselves. Brown petitioned the International Astronomical Union to credit his team rather than Ortiz as the discoverers of Haumea. However, no evidence of impropriety was found, and Ortiz et al. were given sole credit for the discovery. Nonetheless, the IAU did accept Brown's suggested name of Haumea, which fit the names of Haumea's two moons, rather than Ortiz's Ataecina.
Honors, awards and accolades
Brown was named one of Time's 100 Influential People of 2006.[7] In 2007 he received Caltech's annual Feynman Prize, Caltech's most prestigious teaching honor. Asteroid 11714 Mikebrown, discovered on 28 April 1998, was named in his honor.
Ratings & Reviews
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 1,318 reviews
March 16, 2012
Poor Pluto…
…singled out and ridiculed for his diminutive size, kicked out of the Planet Union, and left, weepy and alone, to wander the cold, outer fringes of the solar system with all the other heavenly misfits and riffraff. And who, you ask, was responsible for this astronomical atrocity…
Yep, that’s right...Bill Gates...it figures.
Okay, it’s really Michael Brown, but you have to admit that the resemblance is spooky.
This book is eminently readable and is about as moist and non-stuffy a “science” book as I’ve encountered in a while. It does a nice job of balancing between scientific detail and story telling, though I did hope for a bit more wow in the discussions of the Astronomy vis a vis exploring the solar system. Still, there’s enough information here to give the reader a decent introduction to techniques and technologies involved. I enjoyed it.
PLOT SUMMARY:
In a nutshell, Cal Tech Astronomy professor, Mike Brown, lays out the history of his involvement with analyzing a region of the outer solar system known as the Kuiper Belt, a vast region of asteroids and similar bodies beyond the orbit of Neptune. This research eventually led to the discovery of three Trans-Neptunian Objects (TNOs), later to be categorized as dwarf planets. These consisted of Haumea, Makemake and Eris, the latter of which turned out to be larger than Pluto…raising all kinds of ruckus about whether Pluto should be booted from the Planet Union.
Brown also goes into considerable detail concerning the birth of his first daughter, which occurred during the height of Brown’s science quest. This was my favorite part of the book and I found myself smiling a lot at Brown’s introduction of scientific rigor into the messy realm of babyhood. The man collected data and made graphs on just about every aspect of the birth/newborn process and I got a kick out of his good-natured obsession.
After a series of debates, campaigns and some nerdlinger shenanigans involving allegations of data theft against an observatory in Spain, a decision was reached. After taking a long, long time to study the data, review competing proposals and who knows what else, the International Astronomical Union made the momentous decision to demote Pluto and reduce the number of planets to 8.
FINAL THOUGHTS:
I always liked Pluto, he seemed like a cool planet. He had all those quirks and oddities with his orbit and location that added a real sense of style. I’m sorry to see him go. I think he got a raw deal and his seniority should have counted for something. Therefore, I think it only appropriate to give our former ninth planet the final word.
3.0 stars. Recommended
…singled out and ridiculed for his diminutive size, kicked out of the Planet Union, and left, weepy and alone, to wander the cold, outer fringes of the solar system with all the other heavenly misfits and riffraff. And who, you ask, was responsible for this astronomical atrocity…
Yep, that’s right...Bill Gates...it figures.
Okay, it’s really Michael Brown, but you have to admit that the resemblance is spooky.
This book is eminently readable and is about as moist and non-stuffy a “science” book as I’ve encountered in a while. It does a nice job of balancing between scientific detail and story telling, though I did hope for a bit more wow in the discussions of the Astronomy vis a vis exploring the solar system. Still, there’s enough information here to give the reader a decent introduction to techniques and technologies involved. I enjoyed it.
PLOT SUMMARY:
In a nutshell, Cal Tech Astronomy professor, Mike Brown, lays out the history of his involvement with analyzing a region of the outer solar system known as the Kuiper Belt, a vast region of asteroids and similar bodies beyond the orbit of Neptune. This research eventually led to the discovery of three Trans-Neptunian Objects (TNOs), later to be categorized as dwarf planets. These consisted of Haumea, Makemake and Eris, the latter of which turned out to be larger than Pluto…raising all kinds of ruckus about whether Pluto should be booted from the Planet Union.
Brown also goes into considerable detail concerning the birth of his first daughter, which occurred during the height of Brown’s science quest. This was my favorite part of the book and I found myself smiling a lot at Brown’s introduction of scientific rigor into the messy realm of babyhood. The man collected data and made graphs on just about every aspect of the birth/newborn process and I got a kick out of his good-natured obsession.
After a series of debates, campaigns and some nerdlinger shenanigans involving allegations of data theft against an observatory in Spain, a decision was reached. After taking a long, long time to study the data, review competing proposals and who knows what else, the International Astronomical Union made the momentous decision to demote Pluto and reduce the number of planets to 8.
FINAL THOUGHTS:
I always liked Pluto, he seemed like a cool planet. He had all those quirks and oddities with his orbit and location that added a real sense of style. I’m sorry to see him go. I think he got a raw deal and his seniority should have counted for something. Therefore, I think it only appropriate to give our former ninth planet the final word.
3.0 stars. Recommended
April 27, 2023
I think in pictures - like I assume most of us do. My mental picture for the solar system has not changed in perhaps a quarter of a century, ever since I got my little grubby hands on the insanely popular 1987 Soviet world atlas for children, The World and Humanity.
In this mental picture there's an enormous Sun circled by nine planets, with tiny Pluto on the outskirts, a tiny dot next to its much larger siblings.
And then 2006 came, and suddenly little oddball Pluto has been kicked out from the big kids table, demoted to being a "dwarf planet", and the media temporarily exploded with variations of "When I was your age, Pluto was a planet" . Then we moved on, and Pluto remained dejected and rejected, stripped of its planetary membership.
Mike Brown is a renowned astronomer who played an important part in the downfall of little Pluto. This book is his account of how that happened, interspersed with a few family anecdotes and quite a bit of popular explanations of astronomy. You see, Brown was actively looking for other planets in our solar system, and after discovering quite a few celestial objects all smaller than Pluto (and having one of his discoveries stolen from him by a rival group of scientists - in a turn of events not quite dissimilar to what was happening at the time of Watson and Crick's discovery of DNA structure back in the 1950s) he found what was briefly known as the tenth planet, Planet X, or affectionally and simply as Xena (now Pluto's fellow dwarf planet Eris).
Brown's discovery of Eris was a spark that ignited the larger debate on whether it is a planet, on what exactly a planet even is, and what it all will mean for the fate of both Pluto and Xena. In the unexpected turn of events, instead of hoping that Pluto stays and the new tenth planet joins the fray thus making him the only living discoverer of a solar system planet, Brown publicly expressed his belief that neither Pluto nor Xena deserved to have planetary status. He won. Pluto and Xena lost.
But reading Brown's book, with all the popular science and warm self-deprecating humor in it, convinced me to reluctantly leave the Pluto camp. Sorry, little dude. Poor tiny Pluto has always been an oddball. It's not just his diminutive size; it's the strange orbit and the location on the outside of the Kuiper belt which, as it turned out, is chock full of little planetoids that bear an eerie similarity to our little guy. The facts are there - Pluto simply does not fit neither with the four terrestrial planets nor with the four giant planets. To the kids table you go, little one!
------
BUT ENOUGH ABOUT LITTLE PLUTO'S SOB STORY.
Despite what my review may lead you to believe so far, Brown's book really isn't the story of Pluto's demotion. Instead, it is a story of discovery and scientific curiosity mixed with inordinate amount of tedious work. Disproving Pluto's planetarity was never the goal; the ultimate prize was finding new things in the solar system that by then was considered to have been thoroughly explored and contains nothing new past it's known frontiers. And Brown succeeded without any doubts. There's a slew of celestial objects - "dwarf planets" if you wish - that he added to our fund of knowledge: Sedna, Haumea, Makemake, Quaoar, and the unsuspecting Pluto-killerXena Eris.
This is a story about the thrill of being the first to discover something important, something new, something of literally cosmic proportions. It's a story of hard work that pays off. It's also a story of a loving father who can't help but talk about his kid on what seems like every other page, and that's adorable. It's a story of a guy who needs to get it right (extending into all parts of his life, as far as contemplating a bell curve of births around due dates and creating graphs of his daughter's feeding times). It's a story of a man who was really hoping to be a discoverer of a planet but convinced himself that the right thing to do was to remain the discoverer of trans-Neptunian objects.
4 stars. Oh how I wish I had taken that Intro to Astronomy course in college! Of course, back then Pluto was still a planet...
——————
Also posted on my blog.
In this mental picture there's an enormous Sun circled by nine planets, with tiny Pluto on the outskirts, a tiny dot next to its much larger siblings.
Here's that picture, with tiny Pluto in the right upper corner. A lovely flashback to childhood, thanks to the power of Internet.
And then 2006 came, and suddenly little oddball Pluto has been kicked out from the big kids table, demoted to being a "dwarf planet", and the media temporarily exploded with variations of "When I was your age, Pluto was a planet" . Then we moved on, and Pluto remained dejected and rejected, stripped of its planetary membership.
Mike Brown is a renowned astronomer who played an important part in the downfall of little Pluto. This book is his account of how that happened, interspersed with a few family anecdotes and quite a bit of popular explanations of astronomy. You see, Brown was actively looking for other planets in our solar system, and after discovering quite a few celestial objects all smaller than Pluto (and having one of his discoveries stolen from him by a rival group of scientists - in a turn of events not quite dissimilar to what was happening at the time of Watson and Crick's discovery of DNA structure back in the 1950s) he found what was briefly known as the tenth planet, Planet X, or affectionally and simply as Xena (now Pluto's fellow dwarf planet Eris).
Brown's discovery of Eris was a spark that ignited the larger debate on whether it is a planet, on what exactly a planet even is, and what it all will mean for the fate of both Pluto and Xena. In the unexpected turn of events, instead of hoping that Pluto stays and the new tenth planet joins the fray thus making him the only living discoverer of a solar system planet, Brown publicly expressed his belief that neither Pluto nor Xena deserved to have planetary status. He won. Pluto and Xena lost.
“Pluto is not a planet not because it fails to meet the three-headed criteria laid out by the IAU. Pluto is not a planet because the criteria were written to try to explain the concept that Pluto is not a planet.”I remember feeling annoyed with Pluto's demotion. Why mess up the beautiful picture of the solar system that my brain has been housing since the 1980s? It seemed silly and mean, and made me want to root for the underdog.
But reading Brown's book, with all the popular science and warm self-deprecating humor in it, convinced me to reluctantly leave the Pluto camp. Sorry, little dude. Poor tiny Pluto has always been an oddball. It's not just his diminutive size; it's the strange orbit and the location on the outside of the Kuiper belt which, as it turned out, is chock full of little planetoids that bear an eerie similarity to our little guy. The facts are there - Pluto simply does not fit neither with the four terrestrial planets nor with the four giant planets. To the kids table you go, little one!
------
BUT ENOUGH ABOUT LITTLE PLUTO'S SOB STORY.
Despite what my review may lead you to believe so far, Brown's book really isn't the story of Pluto's demotion. Instead, it is a story of discovery and scientific curiosity mixed with inordinate amount of tedious work. Disproving Pluto's planetarity was never the goal; the ultimate prize was finding new things in the solar system that by then was considered to have been thoroughly explored and contains nothing new past it's known frontiers. And Brown succeeded without any doubts. There's a slew of celestial objects - "dwarf planets" if you wish - that he added to our fund of knowledge: Sedna, Haumea, Makemake, Quaoar, and the unsuspecting Pluto-killer
This is a story about the thrill of being the first to discover something important, something new, something of literally cosmic proportions. It's a story of hard work that pays off. It's also a story of a loving father who can't help but talk about his kid on what seems like every other page, and that's adorable. It's a story of a guy who needs to get it right (extending into all parts of his life, as far as contemplating a bell curve of births around due dates and creating graphs of his daughter's feeding times). It's a story of a man who was really hoping to be a discoverer of a planet but convinced himself that the right thing to do was to remain the discoverer of trans-Neptunian objects.
“I’m still looking for planets, but the bar is now much higher. Anything new that wants to be called a planet needs to be a significant presence in our solar system, and I am not certain that there are any more hiding in the sky. But I keep going. Someday, I hope, I’ll be sitting in my office looking at pictures of the sky from the night before, and there on the screen will be something farther away than I’ve ever seen before, something big, maybe the size of Mars, maybe the size of the earth—something significant. And I’ll know. And, as I did years earlier, I’ll immediately pick up the phone and call Diane. “Guess what?” I’ll say. “I just found the ninth planet.” And—once again—the solar system will never be the same.”
4 stars. Oh how I wish I had taken that Intro to Astronomy course in college! Of course, back then Pluto was still a planet...
——————
Also posted on my blog.
December 15, 2010
Okay, let's start with the disclosures first and get that out of the way. I was sent this book, so I didn't buy it, and I didn't pay for it. Okay? Got it? Good. Now, moving on.
Disclosure number two: I'm not a science buff... or an astronomy buff. I can probably point to the Dippers, maybe Orion on a good day. And, I know the planets by name... My Very Eager Mother Just Served Us Nine Pizzas.
Nine.. uhh... what?
So, Pluto is gone. (Didn't figure I needed to brace you for the spoiler.. it IS in the title after all, right?) I do remember hearing about Pluto's demise, but beyond that first Physical Science pop quiz years ago, I never bothered to wonder why. Well, now I know and I feel slightly more enlightened than before!
What I love about "How I Killed Pluto and Why It Had It Coming" is that it is approachable for people like me. With a mix of personal narration and scientific fact, concepts are broken down in such a way that I FEEL like I'm reading fiction... but I'm actually not, of course.
I think this did for me and astronomy what "Wittgenstein's Poker" (David Edmonds and John Eidinow) did with philosophy ... opened a new curiosity that I might not otherwise explore. And, for that, I give this one five bright, shining stars.
And, we even learn a new acronym:
Mean Very Evil Men Just Shortened Up Nature.
How can you not love that?
Disclosure number two: I'm not a science buff... or an astronomy buff. I can probably point to the Dippers, maybe Orion on a good day. And, I know the planets by name... My Very Eager Mother Just Served Us Nine Pizzas.
Nine.. uhh... what?
So, Pluto is gone. (Didn't figure I needed to brace you for the spoiler.. it IS in the title after all, right?) I do remember hearing about Pluto's demise, but beyond that first Physical Science pop quiz years ago, I never bothered to wonder why. Well, now I know and I feel slightly more enlightened than before!
What I love about "How I Killed Pluto and Why It Had It Coming" is that it is approachable for people like me. With a mix of personal narration and scientific fact, concepts are broken down in such a way that I FEEL like I'm reading fiction... but I'm actually not, of course.
I think this did for me and astronomy what "Wittgenstein's Poker" (David Edmonds and John Eidinow) did with philosophy ... opened a new curiosity that I might not otherwise explore. And, for that, I give this one five bright, shining stars.
And, we even learn a new acronym:
Mean Very Evil Men Just Shortened Up Nature.
How can you not love that?
Want to read
May 31, 2019Q: Do you know what a Kuiper belt object is?
A:
A:
September 12, 2018
It's been a while since this controversy flared up & finally fell off my radar. Like so many, I read a bit on it while it was happening, decided everyone was too goofy to have their facts straight, & so I tried to ignore it until it all shook out. One of my GR friends recently gave this book high marks, so I thought it was time to finally get the full story.
Science & scientists continue to amaze me. They know so much that it's mind boggling, but it's even more surprising when I find that there are holes that would swallow a planet. Yeah, about that; what is a planet? I thought I knew, too. It is... well, hold that thought for a bit. We'll circle back around, just like Brown did.
This is as much an autobiography as it is about the science of the solar system. Brown made his mark by studying the Kuiper Belt, the trans-Neptunian region in which Pluto also orbits. It was interesting how he did it.
When I picture an astronomer it's usually from an old grade B movie.
or maybe that guy in the Armageddon movie that was laying in a padded chaise lounge & yelling for his wife. Nope. The telescopes are too big & show too many objects for our minds to grasp in the fleeting amounts of time we have so they take pictures. The descriptions between old photographic plates & methods compared to new ones is fantastic. Brown needs to write computer programs to run comparisons & spends more time playing with math than he does actually looking at the sky. How he does it is beyond me, but I still found it fascinating.
All that computer time opens up a huge can of worms which Brown documents well & it leads into the fine differences between "finding" an object & "discovering" it. That leads into the thorny question of announcing scientific discoveries. As he points out, cold fusion is perhaps the poster child for announcing discoveries too soon. Discoveries need to be checked & that can be time consuming, especially when dealing with objects that are so far away. Not only can they be occluded by Sol for months at a time, but the information about them is so tenuous that it often needs months or years of research to figure out exactly what it is - how big, composition, orbit, mass, & more. How is all of that figured out by looking at a pinprick of light 100 AU or more away? (An "AU" is the distance from Sol to Earth, roughly 93 million miles, so 100 AU is 100 times that, 9.3 billion miles, so many zeroes that I almost have to take off my shoes.)
If the object is shiny, they may initially think it is bigger than it really is, so leads to headlines like 10th Planet Discovered & then everyone is disappointed when it's just a small sparkly chunk of ice, but the "discoverer" is the person that publicly announces first - not the first one who "finds" it, so that puts a lot of pressure to announce sooner rather than later. It's tenure, job security, unless you screw up the announcement too badly & then it is disgrace. It's politics.
The International Astronomical Union (IAU) is a rather toothless international conglomeration of astronomers that oversees the lists of known objects, deals with naming conventions, & all the rest associated with discoveries. Brown says he doesn't belong because he's never filled out the form, yet he's one of the top astronomers in the world.
And now we're back to that thorny question: What is a planet? Brown spends quite a bit of time on the question & never answers it, but his thoughts are very interesting. The IAU definition is so poor that it would be funny if it wasn't so important. General perception of science plays a huge part in funding it. The discovery of a new planet excites us while a new Kuiper Belt object isn't worth a second glance.
The autobiographical information was a bit much at times, but as a father I could understand it. Daughters are born with daddy's heart strings wrapped around their little finger. When the daughter is the first & only child, the grip is obviously even stronger. It's interesting just how strong his is as his daughter's birth comes right in the midst of his discoveries & often overshadowed them. We all deal with balancing work & family. His task is a bit tougher than most at times.
All in all, I highly recommend this. Its orbit might have been a bit longer than necessary & there weren't some of the concrete answers I was looking for, but I was never bored & found much food for thought as well as a renewed interest in space.
Update 12Sep2018: The debate rages on & is getting sillier. Now they're cherry-picking the usage of the word 'planet' rather than focusing on creating a true definition based on facts.
Science & scientists continue to amaze me. They know so much that it's mind boggling, but it's even more surprising when I find that there are holes that would swallow a planet. Yeah, about that; what is a planet? I thought I knew, too. It is... well, hold that thought for a bit. We'll circle back around, just like Brown did.
This is as much an autobiography as it is about the science of the solar system. Brown made his mark by studying the Kuiper Belt, the trans-Neptunian region in which Pluto also orbits. It was interesting how he did it.
When I picture an astronomer it's usually from an old grade B movie.
or maybe that guy in the Armageddon movie that was laying in a padded chaise lounge & yelling for his wife. Nope. The telescopes are too big & show too many objects for our minds to grasp in the fleeting amounts of time we have so they take pictures. The descriptions between old photographic plates & methods compared to new ones is fantastic. Brown needs to write computer programs to run comparisons & spends more time playing with math than he does actually looking at the sky. How he does it is beyond me, but I still found it fascinating.
All that computer time opens up a huge can of worms which Brown documents well & it leads into the fine differences between "finding" an object & "discovering" it. That leads into the thorny question of announcing scientific discoveries. As he points out, cold fusion is perhaps the poster child for announcing discoveries too soon. Discoveries need to be checked & that can be time consuming, especially when dealing with objects that are so far away. Not only can they be occluded by Sol for months at a time, but the information about them is so tenuous that it often needs months or years of research to figure out exactly what it is - how big, composition, orbit, mass, & more. How is all of that figured out by looking at a pinprick of light 100 AU or more away? (An "AU" is the distance from Sol to Earth, roughly 93 million miles, so 100 AU is 100 times that, 9.3 billion miles, so many zeroes that I almost have to take off my shoes.)
If the object is shiny, they may initially think it is bigger than it really is, so leads to headlines like 10th Planet Discovered & then everyone is disappointed when it's just a small sparkly chunk of ice, but the "discoverer" is the person that publicly announces first - not the first one who "finds" it, so that puts a lot of pressure to announce sooner rather than later. It's tenure, job security, unless you screw up the announcement too badly & then it is disgrace. It's politics.
The International Astronomical Union (IAU) is a rather toothless international conglomeration of astronomers that oversees the lists of known objects, deals with naming conventions, & all the rest associated with discoveries. Brown says he doesn't belong because he's never filled out the form, yet he's one of the top astronomers in the world.
And now we're back to that thorny question: What is a planet? Brown spends quite a bit of time on the question & never answers it, but his thoughts are very interesting. The IAU definition is so poor that it would be funny if it wasn't so important. General perception of science plays a huge part in funding it. The discovery of a new planet excites us while a new Kuiper Belt object isn't worth a second glance.
The autobiographical information was a bit much at times, but as a father I could understand it. Daughters are born with daddy's heart strings wrapped around their little finger. When the daughter is the first & only child, the grip is obviously even stronger. It's interesting just how strong his is as his daughter's birth comes right in the midst of his discoveries & often overshadowed them. We all deal with balancing work & family. His task is a bit tougher than most at times.
All in all, I highly recommend this. Its orbit might have been a bit longer than necessary & there weren't some of the concrete answers I was looking for, but I was never bored & found much food for thought as well as a renewed interest in space.
Update 12Sep2018: The debate rages on & is getting sillier. Now they're cherry-picking the usage of the word 'planet' rather than focusing on creating a true definition based on facts.
October 27, 2020
Mike Brown loves the universe. He is also obsessive, modest to a fault, smart, and has a wickedly dry sense of humor. This book grabbed me by my imagination, and my heart and mind followed. Brown wove his personal story with the astronomical story giving it more resonance. I really enjoyed the machinations of the academic community and the side-story of the Spanish astronomer who “stole” his discovery. I know the academic world is as cut-throat, backstabbing, and gossipy as Hollywood. Still, it’s fun to hear juicy details: the astronomical committees' glacial pace, the apparent lack of common sense in developing standards, and the rush to publish. The book is entertaining and enlightening. (Who knew what a center of mass is? I do now.)
April 5, 2011
If you'd be interested in the love story of a man for his daughter as he watches her progress through the first days of her life, read this. If you're interested in how the contemporary science of astronomy works i, read this. If you'd be interested in a detective story about a team of researchers halfway across the world who nearly stole a major discovery, read this. If you'd be interested in the politics of 'killing' a planet that was accepted as part of the pantheon for more than 70 years, read this. If you'd be interested in hearing the thoughts of a man who has the best characteristics of a scientist and a willingness to put facts above personal gain and glory, read this. And if you, like me, would be interested in all of these things, you simply must read this as soon as Amazon or Audible can get it to you. Mike Brown's humor, humanity, and keen intellect ring throughout this book, and the audio edition does his written voice justice, hitting all of the jokes and staying true to the emotion throughout the work. This book re-inspired me to plunge back into tough review paper and made me excited about science again, despite the fact that Brown and I study very different fields. While taste cannot be a topic of argument, I would be very surprised if the people that enjoy spending time with me would not enjoy this book.
Read
January 6, 2012There are several misconceptions here: First, our solar system does NOT have only eight planets. Second, Mike Brown did not “kill” Pluto, and use of this word is extremely misleading and more about Brown’s ego, which he for some reason has centered around calling himself the “plutokiller.” Third, Eris was not discovered by Brown alone but by a team of three astronomers; one of the other two, Dr. David Rabinowitz, disagrees with Brown and signed a petition rejecting the IAU planet definition and demotion of Pluto. Additionally, Brown is not even an IAU member, so he really had no say in that vote.
Brown is disingenuous in repeatedly saying that the majority of astronomers agree with the IAU decision when this is not the case. The question of what is a planet remains very much a matter of ongoing debate.
Pluto is not dead; Mike Brown tried but failed to “kill” it. The IAU demotion was done by only four percent of its members, most of whom are not planetary scientists. It was opposed by hundreds of planetary scientists in a formal petition led by Dr. Alan Stern, Principal Investigator of NASA’s New Horizons mission to Pluto. Even Dr. Neil de Grasse Tyson admits the debate is ongoing. I encourage people to learn both sides of the issue. Some good pro-Pluto as a planet books are “Is Pluto A Planet?” by Dr. David Weintraub and “The Case for Pluto” by Alan Boyle.
Many of us who want to read a book about astronomy are not interested in reading about how much Brown loves his wife and daughter. The personal stuff reads way too much like Hollywood gossip. There are many books about Pluto out there, and none of them devote a third of their space to personal concerns. Some feel this makes Brown’s story more “human,” but the reality is, it also detracts from the focus on the science. In contrast, Dr. Neil de Grasse Tyson in “The Pluto Files” is able to stick to the science while being humorous and not delving into a personal memoir.
Anyone can now discover a Kuiper Belt planet through the citizen science program Ice Hunters, which can be found at http://www.icehunters.org
Finally, I encourage you and everyone interested in this topic to learn the other side of the issue by reading a terrific book, “The Case for Pluto” by Alan Boyle. I am also working on a book of my own, “The Little Planet That Would Not Die: Pluto’s Story.”
Brown is disingenuous in repeatedly saying that the majority of astronomers agree with the IAU decision when this is not the case. The question of what is a planet remains very much a matter of ongoing debate.
Pluto is not dead; Mike Brown tried but failed to “kill” it. The IAU demotion was done by only four percent of its members, most of whom are not planetary scientists. It was opposed by hundreds of planetary scientists in a formal petition led by Dr. Alan Stern, Principal Investigator of NASA’s New Horizons mission to Pluto. Even Dr. Neil de Grasse Tyson admits the debate is ongoing. I encourage people to learn both sides of the issue. Some good pro-Pluto as a planet books are “Is Pluto A Planet?” by Dr. David Weintraub and “The Case for Pluto” by Alan Boyle.
Many of us who want to read a book about astronomy are not interested in reading about how much Brown loves his wife and daughter. The personal stuff reads way too much like Hollywood gossip. There are many books about Pluto out there, and none of them devote a third of their space to personal concerns. Some feel this makes Brown’s story more “human,” but the reality is, it also detracts from the focus on the science. In contrast, Dr. Neil de Grasse Tyson in “The Pluto Files” is able to stick to the science while being humorous and not delving into a personal memoir.
Anyone can now discover a Kuiper Belt planet through the citizen science program Ice Hunters, which can be found at http://www.icehunters.org
Finally, I encourage you and everyone interested in this topic to learn the other side of the issue by reading a terrific book, “The Case for Pluto” by Alan Boyle. I am also working on a book of my own, “The Little Planet That Would Not Die: Pluto’s Story.”
December 10, 2023
In August 2006, the International Astronomical Union voted to remove Pluto from its place as the ninth planet of our solar system and to rechristen it as a planetoid, as a dwarf planet, with said ballot taking place because astronomer and California Institute of Technology professor Mike Brown (the author of How I Killed Pluto and Why It Had It Coming) had detected a potential tenth planet and the union of course now had to decide how to categorise this new discovery. For admitting this newly discovered object as a tenth planet could potentially pave the way for a solar system with well over one-hundred planets, as most astronomers expect that the Kuiper belt, that the region beyond Neptune where Pluto is located and where the potential new planet was also found contains many similar objects, but that excluding the object (and which was at first albeit wrongly believed to actually be considerably larger than Pluto) would of course mean having to demote Pluto as well. But while I personally was actually rather majorly annoyed when I read (in the news) about the vote to have Pluto removed as the ninth planet (and that the Pluto removers won), yes, after having finally read How I Killed Pluto and Why It Had It Coming I can and do now understand the reasons why and that these should be considered as totally legitimate, scientifically solid, astronomically justified (although I still think that Mike Brown claiming that Pluto deserved to be "killed" and that Pluto supposedly "had this coming" is a bit ridiculous, and that frankly, the book title's wording actually prevented me from even wanting to consider How I Killed Pluto and Why It Had It Coming for more than a decade).
And even though I am still left feeling just a tiny bit irritated at and by Pluto's demotion (but honestly, not nearly as much as before my perusal of How I Killed Pluto and Why It Had It Coming since Mike Brown certainly has been quite scientifically convincing even if for me rather grudgingly so), yes, my reading time with Brown's presented text has generally and definitely been both interesting and equally much enlightening, with me especially appreciating and enjoying how easy-to-read How I Killed Pluto and Why It Had It Coming is and that Mike Brown and almost without the reader even really noticing explains clearly, nicely basically (and also wonderfully scientific jargon free) how planetary science works, answering questions regarding for example what constitutes a planet and demonstrating how the rules regarding this have changed quite radically so over the centuries, how to know that you have in fact spotted a potential planet with and in your telescope and not something else, how you can tell what said planet is made of without being able to take a spaceship there to observe and take soil and rock samples etc. etc.
So yes, How I Killed Pluto and Why It Had It Coming has been both readable and academically, intellectually rewarding, and that the reason why my rating for How I Killed Pluto and Why It Had It Coming is not higher than three stars is actually not at all because of any personal irritation regarding Pluto being removed as the ninth planet of the solar system (as Mike Brown has certainly explained why and has argued believably and credibly, my own slight and remaining peevishness totally notwithstanding) but because I have (personally speaking) found the details Brown presents in How I Killed Pluto and Why It Had It Coming regarding his infant daughter while readable and engaging also frustratingly distracting and rather off-topic and that the non inclusion of a separate bibliography does majorly rub me the wrong proverbial way (and that no, the acknowledgment page which appears before the index of How I Killed Pluto and Why It Had It Coming is not in any way even remotely sufficient for me and in my opinion).
And even though I am still left feeling just a tiny bit irritated at and by Pluto's demotion (but honestly, not nearly as much as before my perusal of How I Killed Pluto and Why It Had It Coming since Mike Brown certainly has been quite scientifically convincing even if for me rather grudgingly so), yes, my reading time with Brown's presented text has generally and definitely been both interesting and equally much enlightening, with me especially appreciating and enjoying how easy-to-read How I Killed Pluto and Why It Had It Coming is and that Mike Brown and almost without the reader even really noticing explains clearly, nicely basically (and also wonderfully scientific jargon free) how planetary science works, answering questions regarding for example what constitutes a planet and demonstrating how the rules regarding this have changed quite radically so over the centuries, how to know that you have in fact spotted a potential planet with and in your telescope and not something else, how you can tell what said planet is made of without being able to take a spaceship there to observe and take soil and rock samples etc. etc.
So yes, How I Killed Pluto and Why It Had It Coming has been both readable and academically, intellectually rewarding, and that the reason why my rating for How I Killed Pluto and Why It Had It Coming is not higher than three stars is actually not at all because of any personal irritation regarding Pluto being removed as the ninth planet of the solar system (as Mike Brown has certainly explained why and has argued believably and credibly, my own slight and remaining peevishness totally notwithstanding) but because I have (personally speaking) found the details Brown presents in How I Killed Pluto and Why It Had It Coming regarding his infant daughter while readable and engaging also frustratingly distracting and rather off-topic and that the non inclusion of a separate bibliography does majorly rub me the wrong proverbial way (and that no, the acknowledgment page which appears before the index of How I Killed Pluto and Why It Had It Coming is not in any way even remotely sufficient for me and in my opinion).
June 9, 2013
If you are a science lover, you will definitely enjoy this book. This book, as the title suggests, discusses about a very specific topic about discovering new planets and hence should not be considered as an introductory book on the topic of Astronomy. This book also provides a great insight into Astronomers daily life and their scientific practices. For an Astronomer, Mike Brown is quite funny and interesting.
The book covers good amount of detail about Author's personal life alongside his quest for discovering a new planet beyond Pluto. The personal life details are thrown in bits and pieces from time to time, which was great because it doesn't disturb the flow of the book plus I felt they were an important part of the book.
With this book. I also came to realize that snooping in the field of Astronomy and Science is real. The last few chapters were really interesting when International Astronomical Union (IAU) were finalizing the exclusion of Pluto and to re-categorize it as one of the "Dwarf Planets". Although, I did feel sad for a moment thinking about how IAU's new definition of planet will no longer make it possible for any Human to find a new planet in our Solar System, I am also convinced that Pluto can no longer be considered as a Planet anymore.
Overall, it is for narrations and books like these that I no longer feel the need of reading Fiction anymore.
The book covers good amount of detail about Author's personal life alongside his quest for discovering a new planet beyond Pluto. The personal life details are thrown in bits and pieces from time to time, which was great because it doesn't disturb the flow of the book plus I felt they were an important part of the book.
With this book. I also came to realize that snooping in the field of Astronomy and Science is real. The last few chapters were really interesting when International Astronomical Union (IAU) were finalizing the exclusion of Pluto and to re-categorize it as one of the "Dwarf Planets". Although, I did feel sad for a moment thinking about how IAU's new definition of planet will no longer make it possible for any Human to find a new planet in our Solar System, I am also convinced that Pluto can no longer be considered as a Planet anymore.
Overall, it is for narrations and books like these that I no longer feel the need of reading Fiction anymore.
February 17, 2014
This is perhaps the most entertaining book on astronomy I've ever read. I hesitate to even call it a science book. While there is lots of information on our solar system that I didn't even know, this is more of a personal journey for the author, chronicling his victories and his frustrations in his search for a tenth planet while committing planetary homicide along the way. It is Mike Brown's light humor and witty insight that makes this book work so well.
So what have I learned?
1) Planet demotion isn't unique. In fact not only have planets been demoted before Pluto but being a planet is a bad career move.
2) Science is a shady business. After talking to a scientist about your new discovery always check your back for stab wounds.
3) There are rules in naming astronomical bodies. Always check with the astronomy committees before naming your planet after a TV warrior queen.
4) Speaking of naming, Petunia is an awful name for a baby girl. I'm sure she is happy you changed it.
Seriously, this book was a very informative look at the process of science and how scientists search for new entities in space. This is the type of science book that will appeal to anyone no matter what the level of astronomical knowledge.
So what have I learned?
1) Planet demotion isn't unique. In fact not only have planets been demoted before Pluto but being a planet is a bad career move.
2) Science is a shady business. After talking to a scientist about your new discovery always check your back for stab wounds.
3) There are rules in naming astronomical bodies. Always check with the astronomy committees before naming your planet after a TV warrior queen.
4) Speaking of naming, Petunia is an awful name for a baby girl. I'm sure she is happy you changed it.
Seriously, this book was a very informative look at the process of science and how scientists search for new entities in space. This is the type of science book that will appeal to anyone no matter what the level of astronomical knowledge.
November 9, 2019
Tell me one more time about your hot wife and your cute daughter! Just one more time! I really miss the days when scientists admitted they were losers who had no lives. It made life so much easier for the rest of us! Reading this book I felt so mocked and belittled, till I just wanted to scream out the name of the dapper patches-on-the-elbow goatee-sporting mad scientist from THE THING.
Dr. Carrington! Dr. Carrington! With my last breath I speak the forbidden name!
Oh, yeah. Pluto is not alone out there. There are dozens of objects even bigger than Pluto in a huge field called the Kuiper Belt. Big deal!
Dr. Carrington! Dr. Carrington! With my last breath I speak the forbidden name!
Oh, yeah. Pluto is not alone out there. There are dozens of objects even bigger than Pluto in a huge field called the Kuiper Belt. Big deal!
September 29, 2023
I was planing on re-reading only key parts because I had debate with my sister about the topic (and who doesn't debates with their sibling too serious? Wouldn't be the fun otherwise) but ended reading it again whole because this is well written story about believing in yourself and your instinct through all the tedious work and failure sprinkled with fair dose of humor.
January 23, 2011
When I was in first or second grade, one of my homework assignments was to write about what I wanted to be when I grew up. Since the my previous goal of being a police-person was shot down and laughed at, I had already been thinking on this subject for a lengthy (for a first grader) amount of time. I thought and I thought and finally, I got a great idea. I thought of something that would be fascinating to me a well as praise-worthy to my parents. When I let my parents read my essay entitled "What I Want to Be When I Grow Up," I thought they'd be thrilled and pat my head at having such high aspirations. To my surprise, their faces darkened and my mother turned to me and said, "No! You cannot be this!"
I had wanted to be an astronomer, but my English in first grade wasn't very good at all, so instead of 'astronomer' I wrote 'astrologer.' My parents had to look this word up in their Chinese-English dictionary. They asked me what I expected to do as an 'astrologer.' Still thinking I would be an astronomer, but having a vague, six-year-old understanding of the occupation, I said I would look at the stars and planets and tell people stuff. This, to their horrified minds was exactly what an astrologer of the "call me at 1800-PSYCHIC" kind did. So they forbade me from taking on this occupation and that's how my short-lived life as a future-astronomer ended.
Luckily, Mike Brown didn't have the same experience and not only is he a famous astronomer, but he's a pretty good story-teller too. How I Killed Pluto and Why It Had It Coming is a humorous look into the chaotic years surrounding the Pluto controversy -- whether it's a planet or not. Before reading the book, I still had an almost six-year-old level of understanding of what an astronomer did. I'm now properly awed at all that scientists have discovered from looking at the sky.
When I think of planets, I think of pretty pictures taken from outer-space devices of colorful round things. What I didn't realize was that a lot of what astronomers of Brown's kind do is look at tons of pictures, keeping an eye out for almost untraceable movements of things that look like stars from one picture to the next. It's amazing how much can be figured out using simple geometry and some not so simple math. I never really thought of it this way, but looking up at the sky and trying to find planets and other moving masses is kind of like an ant on the floor trying to figure out what that thing way up in the ceiling is. Except with way more distance.
How I killed Pluto and Why It Had It Coming is by no means an astronomy textbook, even an introductory one. But it is a pretty readable, layman's version of what an astronomer probably does in his day to day life. I appreciated the personal stories of his growing family that Brown weaved in between his astronomical discoveries, but I wasn't that interested in them at the end and really wanted to just read about the Pluto drama. I had no idea there were such heated feelings around whether Pluto should still be considered a planet or not.
Before reading the book, I never really questioned what exactly was a planet and even now I'm still a little hazy. But at least now, I feel a little more comfortable saying that no, Pluto is not a planet.
I had wanted to be an astronomer, but my English in first grade wasn't very good at all, so instead of 'astronomer' I wrote 'astrologer.' My parents had to look this word up in their Chinese-English dictionary. They asked me what I expected to do as an 'astrologer.' Still thinking I would be an astronomer, but having a vague, six-year-old understanding of the occupation, I said I would look at the stars and planets and tell people stuff. This, to their horrified minds was exactly what an astrologer of the "call me at 1800-PSYCHIC" kind did. So they forbade me from taking on this occupation and that's how my short-lived life as a future-astronomer ended.
Luckily, Mike Brown didn't have the same experience and not only is he a famous astronomer, but he's a pretty good story-teller too. How I Killed Pluto and Why It Had It Coming is a humorous look into the chaotic years surrounding the Pluto controversy -- whether it's a planet or not. Before reading the book, I still had an almost six-year-old level of understanding of what an astronomer did. I'm now properly awed at all that scientists have discovered from looking at the sky.
When I think of planets, I think of pretty pictures taken from outer-space devices of colorful round things. What I didn't realize was that a lot of what astronomers of Brown's kind do is look at tons of pictures, keeping an eye out for almost untraceable movements of things that look like stars from one picture to the next. It's amazing how much can be figured out using simple geometry and some not so simple math. I never really thought of it this way, but looking up at the sky and trying to find planets and other moving masses is kind of like an ant on the floor trying to figure out what that thing way up in the ceiling is. Except with way more distance.
How I killed Pluto and Why It Had It Coming is by no means an astronomy textbook, even an introductory one. But it is a pretty readable, layman's version of what an astronomer probably does in his day to day life. I appreciated the personal stories of his growing family that Brown weaved in between his astronomical discoveries, but I wasn't that interested in them at the end and really wanted to just read about the Pluto drama. I had no idea there were such heated feelings around whether Pluto should still be considered a planet or not.
Before reading the book, I never really questioned what exactly was a planet and even now I'm still a little hazy. But at least now, I feel a little more comfortable saying that no, Pluto is not a planet.
February 27, 2011
Very few books about science convey the excitement of discovery, the hard work, the drama and intrigue, and the thought processes that go on, inside the mind of a scientist. This fabulous book does a wonderful job with all this! Unlike many other popular science books that try too hard to be humorous, entertaining, and often silly, this book gives a light-hearted touch to a dramatic year in the life of a scientist.
At one point in the book, Mike Brown wrote that he received tenure at Cal Tech, but that wasn't the most exciting thing that had happened to him that week. He had just discovered a new planet, bigger than Pluto, the first new planet discovery in over 70 years, but even that wasn't the most exciting event of his week. No, the most exciting event of the week was his engagement to his fiancee!
The author discovered numerous objects in the outer edge of the system, known as the Kuiper belt. Some scientists believe that discovery itself, is the most important thing. (This includes an astronomer who "stole" a discovery from Mike Brown, and announced it immediately, before trying to learn anything about it.) However, to Brown, the best part of his job is not the discovery itself, but the process of investigating his discoveries; he loves to use large telescopes to learn all he can about the newly discovered objects. He describes why he does not immediately announce his discoveries, until he has gathered enought information to give some understanding of it to the general public. He especially likes the Kuiper belt region, as it affords information about the early period of solar system formation.
A big portion of the book centers on the question, of what is the definition of a planet. The definition of a planet, believe it or not, is a very emotion-laden issue for so many people. It's not simple, and many astronomers have struggled with this issue. Mike Brown makes it clear that what is important is not how you label an astronomical object, but what are the scientific concepts behind the thinking. This book lays out the concepts and makes them crystal clear--truly fascinating!
At one point in the book, Mike Brown wrote that he received tenure at Cal Tech, but that wasn't the most exciting thing that had happened to him that week. He had just discovered a new planet, bigger than Pluto, the first new planet discovery in over 70 years, but even that wasn't the most exciting event of his week. No, the most exciting event of the week was his engagement to his fiancee!
The author discovered numerous objects in the outer edge of the system, known as the Kuiper belt. Some scientists believe that discovery itself, is the most important thing. (This includes an astronomer who "stole" a discovery from Mike Brown, and announced it immediately, before trying to learn anything about it.) However, to Brown, the best part of his job is not the discovery itself, but the process of investigating his discoveries; he loves to use large telescopes to learn all he can about the newly discovered objects. He describes why he does not immediately announce his discoveries, until he has gathered enought information to give some understanding of it to the general public. He especially likes the Kuiper belt region, as it affords information about the early period of solar system formation.
A big portion of the book centers on the question, of what is the definition of a planet. The definition of a planet, believe it or not, is a very emotion-laden issue for so many people. It's not simple, and many astronomers have struggled with this issue. Mike Brown makes it clear that what is important is not how you label an astronomical object, but what are the scientific concepts behind the thinking. This book lays out the concepts and makes them crystal clear--truly fascinating!
December 19, 2010
It shocked me to realize just over halfway through "How I Killed Pluto and Why It Had It Coming" that such a book would orbit the top of my short list of all-time favorites. But it did—and it landed closer to the periapsis than the apoapsis. Why?
I’m not a scientist; indeed, my interest in astronomy, while healthy, halts one step short of an emotional attachment to Pluto. Hence, I suppose it was easier, unencumbered by a wounded celestial psyche, to embrace Mike Brown’s story of the stepchild planet and his unapologetic role in its demise.
I am, however, a writer, and Mike Brown’s startlingly delightful prose is priceless—educational, poignant, illuminating, and subtly hilarious, if that doesn’t put too much of a strain on one’s oxymoronic sensibilities. How do you read a book full of gritty technical detail covering years and years of painstaking astronomic observation and find yourself laughing out loud page after page. Just look at the title if you want a glimpse of his writing voice. I mean really, how do you *not* read a book with a title like that?
The emotional attachment I did develop was to the author and his family. Mike weaves his personal trajectory from single PhD student to fiancé then to husband and father seamlessly into his ascension as a renown astronomer and a scientist. As a non-technical type, I was smugly pleased how wife, Diane, and daughter, Lilah, influenced Mike’s cerebral center of mass a bit closer to the right-brain end of the spectrum, albeit kicking and screaming the entire way.
Finally, Mike ambushed me with his beloved science. While already somewhat familiar with orbital dynamics, by the end of the book I was surprised to discover how much I had learned about astrophysics without even realizing it was happening. Actually, that’s the only way I could learn anything about astrophysics. He made it fun.
Kudos to Mike, a chivalrous bow to Diane and a big squeeze for Lilah. All three of you made my day.
I’m not a scientist; indeed, my interest in astronomy, while healthy, halts one step short of an emotional attachment to Pluto. Hence, I suppose it was easier, unencumbered by a wounded celestial psyche, to embrace Mike Brown’s story of the stepchild planet and his unapologetic role in its demise.
I am, however, a writer, and Mike Brown’s startlingly delightful prose is priceless—educational, poignant, illuminating, and subtly hilarious, if that doesn’t put too much of a strain on one’s oxymoronic sensibilities. How do you read a book full of gritty technical detail covering years and years of painstaking astronomic observation and find yourself laughing out loud page after page. Just look at the title if you want a glimpse of his writing voice. I mean really, how do you *not* read a book with a title like that?
The emotional attachment I did develop was to the author and his family. Mike weaves his personal trajectory from single PhD student to fiancé then to husband and father seamlessly into his ascension as a renown astronomer and a scientist. As a non-technical type, I was smugly pleased how wife, Diane, and daughter, Lilah, influenced Mike’s cerebral center of mass a bit closer to the right-brain end of the spectrum, albeit kicking and screaming the entire way.
Finally, Mike ambushed me with his beloved science. While already somewhat familiar with orbital dynamics, by the end of the book I was surprised to discover how much I had learned about astrophysics without even realizing it was happening. Actually, that’s the only way I could learn anything about astrophysics. He made it fun.
Kudos to Mike, a chivalrous bow to Diane and a big squeeze for Lilah. All three of you made my day.
July 8, 2012
Even if Pluto is was your favorite planet (after all, it was named after a cartoon dog!) you will be charmed by this account of a scientists' life and work. From this writing Mike Brown obviously has communication skills which I'm sure makes him a popular instructor and lecturer at Caltech.
This book reminds us that astronomers are people too. In addition to a story about science and discovery, it’s a funny and moving memoir of mixing the astronomy pursuits with personal issues such as courting and marrying his wife and the birth of their first child. So the book is a story of reshaping the solar system and his life, both at the same time.
The reader of this book learns how computing power combined with digital photography has greatly expanded the ability of astronomers to track down new planets (oops, I meant to say dwarf planets). The reader also learns that the ubiquitous internet enables the speedy flow of information in many ways including to and from remote mountain top telescopes. The book also tells of the downside of the internet; unscrupulous internet hackers stealing data (and glory) of discoveries. And for those who thought all scientists were gentlemen who played by the rules will be surprised to learn that there are exceptions.
And finally, the reader of this book will learn that determination of the definition of the word "planet," is no simple matter.
Some of my reviews of other books about astronomy:
The Day We Found the Universe by Marcia Bartusiak
http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/...
Of Stars And Men: Human Response To An Expanding Universe by Harlow Shapley
http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/...
If your image of the scientist as one who labors nobly without expectation of reward, seeking to lift the corner of the veil from the mysteries of the universe, you may find the following book of interest:
Prize Fight: The Race and the Rivalry to be the First in Science by Morton A. Meyers
This book reminds us that astronomers are people too. In addition to a story about science and discovery, it’s a funny and moving memoir of mixing the astronomy pursuits with personal issues such as courting and marrying his wife and the birth of their first child. So the book is a story of reshaping the solar system and his life, both at the same time.
The reader of this book learns how computing power combined with digital photography has greatly expanded the ability of astronomers to track down new planets (oops, I meant to say dwarf planets). The reader also learns that the ubiquitous internet enables the speedy flow of information in many ways including to and from remote mountain top telescopes. The book also tells of the downside of the internet; unscrupulous internet hackers stealing data (and glory) of discoveries. And for those who thought all scientists were gentlemen who played by the rules will be surprised to learn that there are exceptions.
And finally, the reader of this book will learn that determination of the definition of the word "planet," is no simple matter.
Some of my reviews of other books about astronomy:
The Day We Found the Universe by Marcia Bartusiak
http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/...
Of Stars And Men: Human Response To An Expanding Universe by Harlow Shapley
http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/...
If your image of the scientist as one who labors nobly without expectation of reward, seeking to lift the corner of the veil from the mysteries of the universe, you may find the following book of interest:
Prize Fight: The Race and the Rivalry to be the First in Science by Morton A. Meyers
September 21, 2021
I feel like I owe my husband an apology. For actual YEARS, he was trying to get me to read this book, and I didn't - but now I'm the nerd dragging him outside to show him Jupiter and sending him Pluto gifs, so there's that.
This book was AWESOME. I read it on audio, and the narrator was so engaging and conversational and punchy in all the right places. I thought it would be more science-y, and while it is of course heavy on the science, it's far far more of a memoir of Mike Brown's life as an astronomer, how he finds cool shit in deep space, how his love of data made him track every bit of his newborn daughter's life and then graph it. Along the way we hear about science's changing views of the solar system as scientists learned about the Kuiper Belt and all the comparably shaped orbiting things out there keeping Pluto company. And also the weird astronomical naming rules and random internet forums snatching discoveries out from under each other!! Riveting.
What it really felt like was sitting down with someone, passionate about their field of study, telling you all kinds of interesting stories. With that format, I could be fascinated by just about anything! What made this a true winner for me was that Mike Brown comes across as not just absurdly knowledgeable but also friendly and funny, an adoring husband and father and just all around pleasant human.
Be warned: you might get a little obsessed with space. I now have several stargazing apps on my phone and have already listened to Chasing New Horizons, all about the Pluto flyby in 2015. Can you believe that this teeny spacecraft launched 15 years ago and is still puttering along, still in communication with earth??
What's your favorite planet and why? Also would love to hear any titles like this that were surprising favorites!
This book was AWESOME. I read it on audio, and the narrator was so engaging and conversational and punchy in all the right places. I thought it would be more science-y, and while it is of course heavy on the science, it's far far more of a memoir of Mike Brown's life as an astronomer, how he finds cool shit in deep space, how his love of data made him track every bit of his newborn daughter's life and then graph it. Along the way we hear about science's changing views of the solar system as scientists learned about the Kuiper Belt and all the comparably shaped orbiting things out there keeping Pluto company. And also the weird astronomical naming rules and random internet forums snatching discoveries out from under each other!! Riveting.
What it really felt like was sitting down with someone, passionate about their field of study, telling you all kinds of interesting stories. With that format, I could be fascinated by just about anything! What made this a true winner for me was that Mike Brown comes across as not just absurdly knowledgeable but also friendly and funny, an adoring husband and father and just all around pleasant human.
Be warned: you might get a little obsessed with space. I now have several stargazing apps on my phone and have already listened to Chasing New Horizons, all about the Pluto flyby in 2015. Can you believe that this teeny spacecraft launched 15 years ago and is still puttering along, still in communication with earth??
What's your favorite planet and why? Also would love to hear any titles like this that were surprising favorites!
February 11, 2016
You might have convinced me, Mike, but when I'm old and wrinkly I will still shake my withered finger at kids and croak:"Back in my day we had nine planets, and we liked it!"
March 6, 2017
I absolutely loved this easy-breezy memoir about the hunt and discovery of new planets that led to a new understanding of our solar system. Mike Brown and his team discovered five of the largest non-planet objects in our solar system - at the same time when his daughter was born. He was just as fascinated with her as the universe - or even more. This makes the story very compelling. The science is very clear; we learn of scientific methods, astronomer politics, and how newly discovered planets are named. Enjoyable, quick read.
June 20, 2021
I'm not entirely sure I understand why Pluto isn't now considered a planet - or why it originally started out with that designation, but finding out about how new celestial bodies are discovered, and reading about all the drama leading up to the decision to oust Pluto from the cool kids club was fascinating.
December 2, 2022
As of page 119, it's a decent book. It's interesting as far as the astronomy/science/how-a-discovery-is-made perspective, but the book is titled *How I Killed Pluto and Why It Had It Coming*, and we didn't even really discuss Pluto (other than its history) until page 84. And then, just like an object being flung from Jupiter's gravitational field, we're off again not discussing Pluto for another 30-ish pages. I mean, I've enjoyed reading about Object/Planet X and the discoveries Mike Brown and his team(s) made, but ... *Pluto*! Page 119 and we aren't even talking about killing Pluto yet! For a book about *Pluto* and its death (demotion), there sure is a lot of build-up before we actually get to Pluto.
And part of that -- albeit a very small part, but one slightly annoying to me -- is the sidetalk about Brown's personal life, like meeting and marrying his wife, and the birth of their daughter. I'm sure these are important to him, and I wouldn't begrudge anyone being joyous about a happy life; however, I WANT TO READ ABOUT *PLUTO*. WHERE IS PLUTO?!?! Page 119 out of 255 and we've barely even talked about it, let alone get to its demotion and the discussion about whether it should still be a planet!
I also understand that Pluto was demoted as a planet in part because Brown found another body out there that was similar to Pluto, so instead of Pluto being a planet with a unique make-up, it becomes a not-so-unique, one-of-a-group-of-similar-objects, so obviously we have to discuss Brown's discovery of this other body. However, on page 119 out of 255, I only know that because I read a different book, not this one! I'm almost halfway through the book and we haven't even discovered the body that leads to Pluto not being classified as a planet anymore!
So far, Neil deGrasse Tyson's The Pluto Files: The Rise and Fall of America's Favorite Planet is a much better book for an all-around discussion of Pluto's status as a planet, and the controversy about it.
...
Chapter 11 (p. 182 out of 255), and we are *finally* getting to how this relates to Pluto! Amen! There's a purpose in sight! 71.3% of the way through, and it looks like the title of this book is *finally* going to happen!
... But then the actual Pluto-isn't-a-planet-anymore still doesn't happen until chapter 12!
.....
So I gave this book three stars. It was a fairly good book, so it might otherwise get four stars. However, it wasn't about Pluto NEARLY as much as implied by the title, so for that I would give it two stars. Even out the "It's a good book about science" with the "Where's Pluto in this book?!?!", and it averages to 3 stars. I actually think The Pluto Files: The Rise and Fall of America's Favorite Planet is a better book as far as describing what the Pluto controversy was and what came of it.
6/7/15:
So now that I've finished reading my "Pluto trilogy" (the three books I wanted to read about Pluto being demoted from planet status), here's how I rank them, in order of how good the book was, combined with what order they should be read in:
1. The Pluto Files: The Rise and Fall of America's Favorite Planet by Neil deGrasse Tyson. It's a good overview of the debate, with a whole lot of pop culture thrown in (Disney, editorial cartoons, protest parades). It's nice and light, so it's a great introduction to the topic. It does have some science thrown in, but nothing scary.
2. The Case for Pluto: How a Little Planet Made a Big Difference by Alan Boyle. More in-depth than The Pluto Files, this is where you really focus on the search for Planet X, Pluto, the International Astronomical Union's vote on Pluto's status and how that affects science, the future of science, the future of investigations of space, and disagreements between scientists. I liked this book more than The Pluto Files, but The Pluto Files served as a good introduction, and a light approach to the topic. You still get everything about it, but slightly fluffier.
3. How I Killed Pluto and Why It Had It Coming by Mike Brown. This book is less about killing Pluto and more about Mike Brown's discoveries and the affects they had on Pluto. This book is a whole lot less about Pluto's demotion from planet status, and both Tyson's book and especially Boyle's book talk about Brown's discoveries, so this one is the one to miss if you only want to read two books.
And part of that -- albeit a very small part, but one slightly annoying to me -- is the sidetalk about Brown's personal life, like meeting and marrying his wife, and the birth of their daughter. I'm sure these are important to him, and I wouldn't begrudge anyone being joyous about a happy life; however, I WANT TO READ ABOUT *PLUTO*. WHERE IS PLUTO?!?! Page 119 out of 255 and we've barely even talked about it, let alone get to its demotion and the discussion about whether it should still be a planet!
I also understand that Pluto was demoted as a planet in part because Brown found another body out there that was similar to Pluto, so instead of Pluto being a planet with a unique make-up, it becomes a not-so-unique, one-of-a-group-of-similar-objects, so obviously we have to discuss Brown's discovery of this other body. However, on page 119 out of 255, I only know that because I read a different book, not this one! I'm almost halfway through the book and we haven't even discovered the body that leads to Pluto not being classified as a planet anymore!
So far, Neil deGrasse Tyson's The Pluto Files: The Rise and Fall of America's Favorite Planet is a much better book for an all-around discussion of Pluto's status as a planet, and the controversy about it.
...
Chapter 11 (p. 182 out of 255), and we are *finally* getting to how this relates to Pluto! Amen! There's a purpose in sight! 71.3% of the way through, and it looks like the title of this book is *finally* going to happen!
... But then the actual Pluto-isn't-a-planet-anymore still doesn't happen until chapter 12!
.....
So I gave this book three stars. It was a fairly good book, so it might otherwise get four stars. However, it wasn't about Pluto NEARLY as much as implied by the title, so for that I would give it two stars. Even out the "It's a good book about science" with the "Where's Pluto in this book?!?!", and it averages to 3 stars. I actually think The Pluto Files: The Rise and Fall of America's Favorite Planet is a better book as far as describing what the Pluto controversy was and what came of it.
6/7/15:
So now that I've finished reading my "Pluto trilogy" (the three books I wanted to read about Pluto being demoted from planet status), here's how I rank them, in order of how good the book was, combined with what order they should be read in:
1. The Pluto Files: The Rise and Fall of America's Favorite Planet by Neil deGrasse Tyson. It's a good overview of the debate, with a whole lot of pop culture thrown in (Disney, editorial cartoons, protest parades). It's nice and light, so it's a great introduction to the topic. It does have some science thrown in, but nothing scary.
2. The Case for Pluto: How a Little Planet Made a Big Difference by Alan Boyle. More in-depth than The Pluto Files, this is where you really focus on the search for Planet X, Pluto, the International Astronomical Union's vote on Pluto's status and how that affects science, the future of science, the future of investigations of space, and disagreements between scientists. I liked this book more than The Pluto Files, but The Pluto Files served as a good introduction, and a light approach to the topic. You still get everything about it, but slightly fluffier.
3. How I Killed Pluto and Why It Had It Coming by Mike Brown. This book is less about killing Pluto and more about Mike Brown's discoveries and the affects they had on Pluto. This book is a whole lot less about Pluto's demotion from planet status, and both Tyson's book and especially Boyle's book talk about Brown's discoveries, so this one is the one to miss if you only want to read two books.
November 8, 2012
I actually really enjoyed this book. I didn’t expect to like it as much as I did, given that I liked the solar system the way it was, thank you very much, and because Pluto is my zodiac sign’s ruling planet (Scorpio, if you were curious, and yes everything you’ve heard is true), and because who the heck comes up with stuff like this anyway? I mean Pluto has been a planet since 1930 or so, so do we not have anything better to do than sit around and wonder if someone made a mistake in 1930? And astronomy isn’t my favorite subject, though I’ll admit that I have no reason for that other than just liking other scientific disciplines better than astronomy. And then it’s, like, equal parts science and autobiography and I’ve never even heard of this guy.
But I decided to give it a chance and from the first page I was having quiet fits of total nerdy glee. I have recommended this book to three people, and I would recommend it to a lot more. I learned something! I actually learned a lot. There’s a section where the author’s debating the definition of the word “continent” (he’s teaching a geology class, which, hey, I learned something new about the structure of minerals too!) because he’s trying to come to terms with there not being a good definition of the word “planet.” And I’m not going to recreate that entire moment here but well, the guy has a point. What makes a continent a continent? What makes a planet a planet? Also, I spent probably 2 hours looking at the Soviet pictures of Venus, which I have never before had any desire to see. And then there are rules for naming asteroids and comets and stuff? Huh. Who knew? (Well, probably any astronomer, but still.)
The technical parts were written well enough that I didn’t feel stupid—it wasn’t me reading a book outside of my comfort zone and not understanding a word of it because it assumes I know a whole lot more than I do, but on the other hand, it wasn’t me reading a book that made me feel like the author was dumbing everything down, either.
The parts that were more biography than science were great and I loved how they all tied in. His daughter’s fascination with planets at the end was really cute.
But I decided to give it a chance and from the first page I was having quiet fits of total nerdy glee. I have recommended this book to three people, and I would recommend it to a lot more. I learned something! I actually learned a lot. There’s a section where the author’s debating the definition of the word “continent” (he’s teaching a geology class, which, hey, I learned something new about the structure of minerals too!) because he’s trying to come to terms with there not being a good definition of the word “planet.” And I’m not going to recreate that entire moment here but well, the guy has a point. What makes a continent a continent? What makes a planet a planet? Also, I spent probably 2 hours looking at the Soviet pictures of Venus, which I have never before had any desire to see. And then there are rules for naming asteroids and comets and stuff? Huh. Who knew? (Well, probably any astronomer, but still.)
The technical parts were written well enough that I didn’t feel stupid—it wasn’t me reading a book outside of my comfort zone and not understanding a word of it because it assumes I know a whole lot more than I do, but on the other hand, it wasn’t me reading a book that made me feel like the author was dumbing everything down, either.
The parts that were more biography than science were great and I loved how they all tied in. His daughter’s fascination with planets at the end was really cute.
November 8, 2010
Over the period of several years Mike Brown, an astronomer at CalTech, discovered large objects in the Kupier Belt (the asteroid belt outside of the orbit of Neptune) that led astronomers to consider the question, "What is a planet?" and "What does this mean for Pluto?". It took years, but eventually astronomy's governing body voted in the status of these newly discovered bodies...were they to be considered planets or not...and what does this mean for Pluto, which is of a comparable size and location to these new discoveries.
Brown weaves a clear and engaging narrative of his experiences as these events unfolded. I was fascinated by his description of how astronomers do their work, how they accumulate observations, how they analyze those data, and then write up their results so that others have information about the new discovery when it is announced.
Brown uses an interesting method of helping the reader stay up to date on what happened when by commenting on things like his own engagement, the birth of his daughter, and his daughters development and growth. This part of the book provides an interesting insight into the mind of scientists, how they view the world and try to make sense of it.
Interestingly, Brown was not centrally involved in the official discussions and decisions that demoted Pluto from being a planet to being a dwarf planet, but even though the decision to keep Pluto at the status of a full planet would have recognized some of his own discoveries with the same label, Brown does an excellent job of explaining why that would not have been the best outcome.
So, if you are still mourning the loss of Pluto from the list of planets in our solar system, here's a book by the person best poised to know and explain why that is.
This book is highly recommended for anyone with even a passing interest in astronomy or how science works, or both.
Brown weaves a clear and engaging narrative of his experiences as these events unfolded. I was fascinated by his description of how astronomers do their work, how they accumulate observations, how they analyze those data, and then write up their results so that others have information about the new discovery when it is announced.
Brown uses an interesting method of helping the reader stay up to date on what happened when by commenting on things like his own engagement, the birth of his daughter, and his daughters development and growth. This part of the book provides an interesting insight into the mind of scientists, how they view the world and try to make sense of it.
Interestingly, Brown was not centrally involved in the official discussions and decisions that demoted Pluto from being a planet to being a dwarf planet, but even though the decision to keep Pluto at the status of a full planet would have recognized some of his own discoveries with the same label, Brown does an excellent job of explaining why that would not have been the best outcome.
So, if you are still mourning the loss of Pluto from the list of planets in our solar system, here's a book by the person best poised to know and explain why that is.
This book is highly recommended for anyone with even a passing interest in astronomy or how science works, or both.
January 10, 2011
I expected this book to be interesting, given that the demotion of Pluto to a dwarf planet a few years ago was a very emotional moment for scientists and laymen alike. This book surpassed my expectations. It it such a great read that for the first time ever, I felt compelled to write a review and recommend the book.
Mike Brown's voice is genuine, down-to-earth, and honest. He does a tremendous job of weaving his personal story into the story of how the solar system ended up with 8 planets. By the time you are done reading, you know the husband and father, the astronomer, the scientists, the guy who has a discovery stolen from him, and of course, the guy who 'killed Pluto'.
I think this is a must read for anybody interested in science. It gives an inside look of how science history is made. From the telescopes and university offices, to 'Good Morning America' and international conventions.
I would recommend the book even more to people like me who are in grad school. There's a few places that capture the struggles, the moments when you are ready to quit, the fear of being scooped, and much more.
Overall, this is an excellent read for someone who loves science and the ways it meddles with our lives.
Mike Brown's voice is genuine, down-to-earth, and honest. He does a tremendous job of weaving his personal story into the story of how the solar system ended up with 8 planets. By the time you are done reading, you know the husband and father, the astronomer, the scientists, the guy who has a discovery stolen from him, and of course, the guy who 'killed Pluto'.
I think this is a must read for anybody interested in science. It gives an inside look of how science history is made. From the telescopes and university offices, to 'Good Morning America' and international conventions.
I would recommend the book even more to people like me who are in grad school. There's a few places that capture the struggles, the moments when you are ready to quit, the fear of being scooped, and much more.
Overall, this is an excellent read for someone who loves science and the ways it meddles with our lives.
January 26, 2011
Any scientist can write about his great discovery. Mike Brown writes about his in a way that makes you want to actually read about it. Instead of going on and on about his findings in scientific terms, he explains astronomy in a way that most middle school students could understand.
He adds interest to the story by not just writing about his discovery and how it changed history but also how it changed himself. He inserts details about his everyday life and how these details had an effect on his work. My favorite part of the book was not the moment of his discovery but in the little ways he described his new daughter, Lilah.
This is a great book if you want to brush up on the whole "Is Pluto a planet?" debacle. I would read it just for fun even if you don't. Mike Brown is a funny guy. I caught myself laughing out loud at his descriptions and the way he mocks himself. This book definitely deserves 5 stars.
He adds interest to the story by not just writing about his discovery and how it changed history but also how it changed himself. He inserts details about his everyday life and how these details had an effect on his work. My favorite part of the book was not the moment of his discovery but in the little ways he described his new daughter, Lilah.
This is a great book if you want to brush up on the whole "Is Pluto a planet?" debacle. I would read it just for fun even if you don't. Mike Brown is a funny guy. I caught myself laughing out loud at his descriptions and the way he mocks himself. This book definitely deserves 5 stars.
March 16, 2018
Only read if you want to know about Mike Brown’s daughter’s very early life. Like, a lot about her very early life. Also his wife is glamorous, and provides a nice foil to an obsessive planet hunter. And then there were those Spanish astronomers who...oh boy, don’t get Mike Brown started in on...they did a dastardly thing. I mean really dastardly. But Mike Brown kept his cool through the whole thing. He in fact goes back to read the email he wrote to the Spanish guys in which he kept his cool, to remind himself how super-humanly-cool-keeping he managed to be during... I mean dastardly! You wouldn’t believe it. Also, KBOs, Mike found some. Then he named them. And he killed Pluto. Well, not “and,” I mean the Pluto killing was just part of the KBO finding. It’s a memoir. It has its moments. Especially at the beginning.
May 7, 2022
I choose to read ‘How I killed Pluto and Why It Had It Coming’ after reading about the New Horizons mission to Pluto and immediately seeing this book recommended I thought I would pick it up. I was looking for a book that would explain more in depth about why Pluto was demoted.
I think it is important to state that this book is not what I expected in the slightest. It only truly talked about the actual demotion of Pluto in the last 50 pages, instead focussing on the discovery of other objects that led to Pluto’s demise. I was also shocked to find out Mark Brown actually did not vote to have Pluto demoted. He in fact had no say in the deffiniton of a planet, instead he found the object that challenged the definition of planet.
Mike Brown is an American Astronomer and has been a professor of planetary astronomy at the California Institute of technology. He discovered ‘Eris’ - a dwarf planet originally thought to be bigger than Pluto. Eris triggered a debate on the definition of a planet, in the end leading to Pluto’s demise.
This book mostly touches on how Brown discovered Eris and Haumea (referred to as Santa for the majority of the book). He had Haumea/Santa snatched from his hands by some Spanish Scientists who claimed they had made the discovery. Although we still do not know entirely what happened, we know that the Spanish Scientists managed to find a data base that showed a particular telescope had been tracking Santa/Haumea. I found this aspect of the book very interesting.
Brown was very supportive of the demotion of Pluto,, albeit that it would be in his best interest for his discoveries and Pluto to be a planet, he felt it would be scientifically incorrect. I must admit even after reading the book I am still not entirely sure if I agree with the current definition of a planet. I don’t think the decision was made in the best way possible, but I feel our current planets are too well accepted for anything to change now.
I found it slightly disappointing how much the book centred on Brown’s discoveries. The title definitely feels misleading. It isn’t that I don’t want to learn about these other solar system objects, it is more I wanted to find out about Pluto.
I think I will have to rate this book a 3/5. I enjoyed it but nothing really stood out enough to get a higher rating. It is a decent book for what it is though, so would recommend for anyone interested in the discoveries of Brown, rather then the demise of Pluto.
I think it is important to state that this book is not what I expected in the slightest. It only truly talked about the actual demotion of Pluto in the last 50 pages, instead focussing on the discovery of other objects that led to Pluto’s demise. I was also shocked to find out Mark Brown actually did not vote to have Pluto demoted. He in fact had no say in the deffiniton of a planet, instead he found the object that challenged the definition of planet.
Mike Brown is an American Astronomer and has been a professor of planetary astronomy at the California Institute of technology. He discovered ‘Eris’ - a dwarf planet originally thought to be bigger than Pluto. Eris triggered a debate on the definition of a planet, in the end leading to Pluto’s demise.
This book mostly touches on how Brown discovered Eris and Haumea (referred to as Santa for the majority of the book). He had Haumea/Santa snatched from his hands by some Spanish Scientists who claimed they had made the discovery. Although we still do not know entirely what happened, we know that the Spanish Scientists managed to find a data base that showed a particular telescope had been tracking Santa/Haumea. I found this aspect of the book very interesting.
Brown was very supportive of the demotion of Pluto,, albeit that it would be in his best interest for his discoveries and Pluto to be a planet, he felt it would be scientifically incorrect. I must admit even after reading the book I am still not entirely sure if I agree with the current definition of a planet. I don’t think the decision was made in the best way possible, but I feel our current planets are too well accepted for anything to change now.
I found it slightly disappointing how much the book centred on Brown’s discoveries. The title definitely feels misleading. It isn’t that I don’t want to learn about these other solar system objects, it is more I wanted to find out about Pluto.
I think I will have to rate this book a 3/5. I enjoyed it but nothing really stood out enough to get a higher rating. It is a decent book for what it is though, so would recommend for anyone interested in the discoveries of Brown, rather then the demise of Pluto.
April 14, 2024
Borrow.
While I was aware of the decision when it was made, I knew little about why and how. How great to hear it all from the discoverer himself and get a view into the life, work, and dedication of an astronomer. I really appreciated that.
This is a more personal account than you will be expecting as Brown simultaneously takes you through his personal life. This can lead to higher peaks of excitement but also can feel a bit distracted. Cutting down the content and a few chapters could have made this a better more focused book.
While I was aware of the decision when it was made, I knew little about why and how. How great to hear it all from the discoverer himself and get a view into the life, work, and dedication of an astronomer. I really appreciated that.
This is a more personal account than you will be expecting as Brown simultaneously takes you through his personal life. This can lead to higher peaks of excitement but also can feel a bit distracted. Cutting down the content and a few chapters could have made this a better more focused book.
January 30, 2024
Really interesting read.
And easy to read.
And easy to read.
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