Calling All Pluto Protestors!
August 12, 2008
In case you haven't heard, the Great Planet Debate is going down this week in Laurel, Maryland at Johns Hopkins University. It's at their Applied Physics Laboratory, which is just about smack-dab between Washington, D.C. and Baltimore, MD.
A ton of planetary scientists should be there to wrestle with the definition of a planet, among other geeky matters, but at the center is a Thursday night throw-down between Tyson and Sykes.
Not good ol' Mike Tys
on, but Neil DeGrasse Tyson -- a major popularizer of science and an astrophysicist at the American Museum of Natural History, here in New York City.
Sykes = Mark Sykes, director for the Planetary Society Institute, whom I've chatted with a few times. (Here's one of our conversations on the Dawn mission to the Asteroid Belt.)
As you can tell from the photo at left, they look really mean. At any rate, the whole point of this post:
I might be there I won't be there -- but will you? Discovery Space blogger and Hubble Space Telescope guy "Cosmic" Ray Villard will definitely be ringside to bring you the minute-by-minute shenanigans, so be sure to say "hi" to him, if not to both of us.
***IMPORTANT! CALLING ALL PLUTO PROTESTERS!*** If you're going to be protesting about Pluto (for or against it being a planet), please, please, please let me know right away. I would love to chat with you about doing something special!
You can drop me a line in the comments of this post, or if you'd like e-mail me at DiscoverySpace@Discovery.com.
Photos: NASA/Planetary Society Institute
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