Neil deGrasse Tyson is the director of the Hayden Planetarium in New
York, which caused controversy with how it categorized the solar system
into three groups, placing Pluto not with the other planets but with the
Kuiper Belt objects at the outskirts of our solar system. Dan Deitch
photo
Last night, PBS debuted a new NOVA episode dedicated to NOVA scienceNOW host Neil deGrasse Tyson’s now somewhat infamous book,
The Pluto Files. Having read the book and interviewed Tyson for the “Astro Confidential” department in the magazine, I was excited to see how they’d put his book on screen. I also knew Tyson would be interviewing staunch Pluto supporter and New Horizon’s principal investigator Alan Stern on the program, and I was curious to see how that dynamic went.
The show paid, in my opinion, a nice complement to the book, which in paperback contains some still shots from the episode and a variety of appendix material that the 1-hour program includes. If you read the book first, which I recommend you do, you’ll know Tyson’s position on Pluto, but the author doesn’t actually reveal his full stance until the end of the NOVA program. Instead, he spends most of the program explaining the history of Pluto’s discovery and how the controversy started (including some great clips from Stephen Colbert and Jon Stewart), debating the pros and cons of its full planetary status, and delving into why people are so passionate about this icy world in the outskirts of our solar system. And he interviews people on all sides, including a pleasant discussion with Stern.
The Pluto Files takes readers on a journey of Pluto’s discovery and the
controversy around its current planetary status.
My favorite part of the show, though, was Tyson’s visit to New Mexico to see Pluto discoverer Clyde Tombaugh’s family. There, Clyde’s son, Alden, showed Tyson some of Clyde’s homemade telescopes. I was as amazed with him as Tyson was with the materials Clyde used (a lawn mower?!). And I loved how gracious and kind-hearted daughter Annette was upon her eventual visit to the Hayden Planetarium in New York, which is kind of the starting point for the Pluto debate.
In the end, it was a fascinating program, and I recommend people on all sides of the fence should read the book and/or try to catch the NOVA episode on repeat (check your local listings) — or buy the DVD from
pbs.org. We here at the magazine are very much divided on Pluto’s status, but we all enjoyed the program.
If you have already read the book or caught last night’s Nova, what were your reactions? Should Pluto stay a dwarf planet or regain its full planetary status? What about Eris and the rest of the dwarf planets?
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