Pluto, Sponsored By McDonalds

October 06, 2009

You didn't really think the Pluto "debate" had gone away did you? Actually, this time it's not an angry plutonite, confused astronomer or the governor of Illinois causing a stir, it's the fast-food behemoth McDonalds that has sparked some low-key controversy in the UK.

This is a good one.

According to The Register, in an effort to get kids more interested in cooking for themselves, McDonalds has produced a series of fun facts printed on the side of their Happy Meal boxes. I'm not sure how McDonalds can possibly promote home cooked meals by printing games on their cardboard dinners, but marketing has always been a mystery to me.

EXTRA: Astronomy leaders vote to take away Pluto's planetary status, leaving the solar system with eight celestial bodies. Jorge Ribas reports.

So one of these fun facts printed on a Happy Meal box says "the Solar System is made up of all the planets that orbit our sun." Fun fact indeed -- I'm glad to see some space science to make it onto fast food packaging! Oh, hold on, there's something unsightly on the packaging too, which says, "there are 9 planets total."

Nine planets? And things were going so well. Shame on you McDonalds.

Unless you've been living underground for the past few years, you've probably heard that Pluto was "demoted" to the planetary underclass by the International Astronomical Union (IAU) in 2006 because the dwarf planet was unable to "clear its own orbit."

I've always been a little "meh" about the whole thing to be honest. Yes, I love Pluto, I think it's awesome, but do I care whether it's called a planet, dwarf planet, plutoid, plutino, KBO, asteroid or a muffin? Not really. Pluto was demoted because the Solar System was getting a little crowded and the dwarf planet became a rounding error. After all, the discovery of Eris by Dr Mike Brown (a.k.a. the aptly named @plutokiller) in 2005 caused all kinds of strife for the confused world; Eris was bigger than Pluto.

So ever since the IAU voted that Pluto is no longer a planet, there's been a lot of angry folk who are outraged at this "reckless decision." For me, I see it as the scientific process doing its job: advancing and adapting. The Solar System has become a far bigger place than it was when Pluto was discovered in 1930 by Illinois resident Clyde Tombaugh, it seems inevitable that planetary classifications are going to change.

So what have I learnt from this little story?

1. Don't take your kids to McDonalds to get their sole education from the side of Happy Meal boxes.
2. For some reason McDonalds thinks there's a real debate over the classification of Pluto when they announced, "we are aware of the debate about Pluto" to the UK's press.
3. The Register gets a little too upset about printed packaging.

The Register even went so far as accusing McDonalds of spreading "U.S. scientific propaganda" -- a little strong don't you think? As far as I can tell, the US has pretty much accepted dwarf planet Pluto in it's new classification.

Could it be that perhaps the guy who researched the "fun facts" on the side of Happy Meal box was doing his research from a pre-2006 text book? I think that's a far more likely scenario than McDonalds taking a political stance over the matter (despite what they say to the contrary).

Source: Cosmic Log

Comments

[Ez Internet Money]

Well at least McDonalds is offering up besides the normal garbage of has on the side of a kids meal box. Let's face it, Mickey D's is going to open the first commercial anything when we populate the moon or Mars.

[Casey Loufek]

You know McDonald's is wrong and backward on this any way you slice it.

What is a dwarf planet, whether it counts as a planet, and whether the designation should exist may certainly be debatable. That doesn't explain how Pluto can be a planet and Eris not. You can't have it both ways, they really should have listed Eris and the others Laurel mentions. Then they would have seem "hip" and aware of the debate. Instead they do come across as having their heads in the sand.

There may not be 8, but there are certainly not 9 planets.

[Alan Seeger]

Sure, there are nine planets.

Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune, and that one in the Gor novels. :-)

[Mark]

Jupiter has 63 moons. Some are big round moons, some are little tiny moons. I can't remember all their names; I have to look it up. I guess most people would. So does that make the small moons of Jupiter not moons of Jupiter? No. It does not.

Only a few of the many celestial objects orbiting the Sun are massive enough to be in hydrostatic equilibrium and orbit the Sun independently. 13 at last count. But if it turns out that there are 201 objects orbiting the Sun that meet these requirements--that are planets
--than so be it: that means the Sun has 201 planets. And that regardless of the nationality of their discoverers.

[Jesse]

Everyone I know in the US of A has indeed, albeit with a certain amount of wistful nostalgia, accepted Pluto's demotion from planetary status.

As the body in question is smaller than some moons, it always did beg the question.

Scientists are still debating whether one of the precursors to AIDS is HIV, so I don't think that scientists arguing puts any damper on what has been accepted by the general populace.

No matter whether it changes in the future, Pluto is no longer a planet, for NOW.

[Tom]

It's understandable why the UK is upset abut this. An small, insignificant countrytoid like the UK wants everything downsized so it can pretend it has a bigger role.

[Laurel Kornfeld]

Wrong, most people in the US have NOT accepted the IAU definition, at least the part that says dwarf planets are not planets at all. It is the IAU that is imposing its eight-planet propaganda on the whole world and asking everyone to blindly accept a flawed definition adopted by only four percent of its members, most of whom are not planetary scientists, in a process that violated its own bylaws. In fact, hundreds of professional astronomers led by Dr. Alan Stern, Principal Investigator of NASA's New Horizons mission to Pluto, immediately responded with a formal petition rejecting the IAU definition.

McDonald's representatives have admitted they know about the controversy. What the Register refuses to recognize is that they chose NOT to accept the IAU definition. Interestingly, it's the supporters of Pluto's planet status who publicly admit the matter is still up for debate. The IAU and Mike Brown have done everything possible to suppress all debate, claiming the issue is settled when it clearly is not.

There is nothing wrong with the solar system being crowded with planets. It's hard to imagine any scientific justification for artificially narrowing the number of planets just because having "too many" is inconvenient for some people.

According to Stern and like-minded scientists, a planet is a non-self-luminous spherical body orbiting a star. The spherical part is important because it means an object is in large enough to be shaped by its own gravity, a state known as hydrostatic equilibrium and characteristic of planets, not of shapeless asteroids. This definition gives our solar system 13 planets: Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Ceres, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune, Pluto, Haumea, Makemake, and Eris.

In short, there IS still a very real debate over the status of Pluto.

[Jeremy]

pluto is not a planet but planet x is sure a planet and in the next ten years be very aware it is going to come very close to earth, Nibiru search that up on google videos, it explains it all.

[zigadabooga]

What's a Planet?

http://www.whatsaplanet.com

Pluto's just in a different class.

The IAU defines asteroids as small "Solar System" bodies. So if we find one in another system it has no designation?