T. K. Arispe

 I'd been wanting to make this graphic for a long time, and I finally was able to get around to it during a rare lull in scientists throwing ideas at me. :)

I know there's a lot of controversy surrounding the whole Pluto "demotion" thing, and I personally don't feel like the IAU's case was watertight*, but in the grand scheme of things, we should really stop and ask ourselves: is it a big deal? Dwarf planets are still amazingly incredible places no matter what humans decide to call them. So what if the IAU categorizes things into tidy little boxes with emotionally weighted labels? That doesn't prevent us from studying them, exploring them, and loving them.

So I made this graphic to encourage people to stop thinking of dwarf planets as somehow inferior to major planets. Dwarf planets are wonderful in their own special way. I think we'd all be better off spending less energy being angry about something inconsequential, and more energy finding ways to enjoy life.

My friend Chris Lintott is going to give a lecture on this very subject in a few weeks, so stop by (or watch the YouTube recording later) for what I'm sure will be a very elucidating take on the subject. Chris is a fantastic example of a well-grounded astronomer, which is a great oxymoron to be.

*Among other issues with the current definition of the term "planet", I'm not convinced by the argument that we need to keep the number of "real" planets in the solar system low so they're easy to memorize. Students are required to memorize much larger sets of data in most curricula--think about how many characters Chinese and Japanese students have to memorize just to be considered basically literate in their languages. US students have to memorize all 50 states and (theoretically) all the capitals. And who could ever forget those long hours spent with multiplication or periodic table flashcards?

Plus, just because a large set of something exists, doesn't necessarily mean you need to memorize all of the items in the set. When I was in school, part of the curriculum was learning the counties of California. California has 58 counties. We were definitely not required to fully memorize all of them. But we were expected to know at least 5. (I feel bad for students in Texas, which has 254 counties. Yeah.)

If I were designing an introductory astronomy curriculum, I'd require my students to memorize all the major solar system planets in order as well as their largest moons, and a handful of the more notable dwarf planets. Anything more than that would be unnecessary, but I would encourage them to keep learning about the solar system on their own time.

I'm not fond of taking actions that dumb down education. The human brain is capable of so much. Learning should be about stretching and enlarging your brain's capabilities, not checking off boxes.