How I Killed Pluto and Why It Had It Coming

an absolutely fantastic look at the story behind pluto losing its planetary status. great insights into the scientific community, as well as touching moments about mike brown's family and daughter. simply written, but funny and smart at the same time.

I really like the cover of this book, and I was pretty sure I'd be reading something kind of self-centered with the first-person title, and I wasn't wrong. I'm not necessarily complaining about it, but Mike Brown wrote a book about his life during the period that he was finding objects and when Pluto was reclassified, instead of just writing about those things. So when he did a couple tangents about how great his baby is and how he kept a blog about her, I was expecting it. I even agree with him that it's strange that apparently no one has data on the how far away from the official due date women give birth? That's weird. But it's not really what I was reading for, and I don't really care about Mike Brown. I'm sure he's a great person...though he did do a lot of “I” statements about things that his team did, while still giving them credit. Maybe when he said “I” in certain contexts he actually meant “we”. Anyway, it's an interesting look at the lead up to the reclassification of Pluto, and I learned some about the controversy surrounding the discovery of Eris that I didn't know before.

What really bugs me about this though is how often Brown says that he “killed Pluto”. It's in the title, presumably for effect which it does have, and apparently he also said that “Pluto is dead” when the vote happened, and he consistently uses that wording through the book. Maybe he thinks we're all smart enough to know that he's just using this wording for effect, but I got tired of it really fast. For someone who wanted the public to accept the reclassification of Pluto, he's using the most damning language possible. Pluto is not dead, except in the sense that it has no life on it (as far as we know...), and it's really annoying to keep hearing it from someone who definitely knows better. I agree with him that “dwarf planet” is kind of a dumb name, and I found it interesting to know that it was only used to try and keep Pluto in the planet club. I also liked his explanation of astronomy terms being used to describe concepts instead of strictly defined things. But seriously, tone it down with the “killing Pluto” thing. It's like he was so let down at not being known as a guy who discovered the 10th planet that he took up the mantle of “planet-killer” just to have some good-sounding notoriety. It would have been note-worthy still to be one of the guys who helped change Pluto's classification. It's not as snazzy, but it's more accurate. I wonder if the other guys on Brown's team refer to themselves as guys who killed Pluto. So after this book, which while I'm sure is factual is also biased, I'm going to seek out some other Pluto books to balance myself out.

Although I loved the book, Pluto will always be my ninth planet.