1 00:00:02,103 --> 00:00:05,671 NEIL deGRASSE TYSON: In 1930, a farm boy with a passion for the universe 2 00:00:05,740 --> 00:00:08,707 notices a tiny dot moving across the night sky. 3 00:00:08,776 --> 00:00:12,244 He discovers Pluto, 4 00:00:12,313 --> 00:00:17,116 four billion miles from the sun and cloaked in darkness. 5 00:00:17,184 --> 00:00:20,052 Pluto is a mystery. 6 00:00:20,121 --> 00:00:24,289 Our best images are nothing more than a blur. 7 00:00:24,358 --> 00:00:27,159 And many scientists are arguing over whether it's even a planet. 8 00:00:27,228 --> 00:00:29,294 When we fly our spaceship to Pluto, 9 00:00:29,363 --> 00:00:31,597 we'll arrive at a round world. 10 00:00:31,665 --> 00:00:35,901 I'm able to use the word "world" if you like, but planet? 11 00:00:35,970 --> 00:00:40,239 TYSON: The scientific debate over Pluto has even caused a media frenzy. 12 00:00:40,307 --> 00:00:42,841 I'm sorry, I thought planets 13 00:00:42,910 --> 00:00:44,743 might be one of the constants in life. 14 00:00:44,812 --> 00:00:48,347 TYSON: Pluto lovers of America have taken to the streets. 15 00:00:48,416 --> 00:00:49,948 Pluto forever! 16 00:00:51,752 --> 00:00:54,319 TYSON: What is Pluto? 17 00:00:54,388 --> 00:00:56,922 A new mission to the far reaches of the solar system 18 00:00:56,991 --> 00:00:59,792 promises to answer this question and more. 19 00:00:59,860 --> 00:01:01,927 It's true first-time exploration. 20 00:01:01,996 --> 00:01:04,329 Pluto is going to be completely revealed in all of its glory. 21 00:01:06,567 --> 00:01:08,867 TYSON: Join me, Neil deGrasse Tyson, 22 00:01:08,936 --> 00:01:11,303 on a journey to explore America's favorite planet. 23 00:01:11,372 --> 00:01:13,172 ALL: Hi! 24 00:01:13,240 --> 00:01:17,643 TYSON: And find out why some people are blaming Pluto's problems on me. 25 00:01:17,711 --> 00:01:20,646 So, how do you feel about Pluto, Dr. Tyson? 26 00:01:20,714 --> 00:01:25,784 TYSON: These are "The Pluto Files," next on NOVA. 27 00:01:41,068 --> 00:01:49,341 Major funding for NOVA is provided by the following... 28 00:01:49,410 --> 00:01:52,978 TYSON: JOFor more than 75 years, theng great stage of our solar system 29 00:01:53,047 --> 00:01:55,447 had a familiar cast of characters, 30 00:01:55,516 --> 00:01:58,117 nine players in all. 31 00:01:58,185 --> 00:02:00,219 We even memorized their names. 32 00:02:00,287 --> 00:02:04,089 Mercury, Venus, Earth and Mars... 33 00:02:04,158 --> 00:02:06,091 the rocky planets. 34 00:02:06,160 --> 00:02:09,828 Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune... 35 00:02:09,897 --> 00:02:12,131 those gas giants. 36 00:02:12,199 --> 00:02:15,000 And all the way out to the very edge of our solar system, 37 00:02:15,069 --> 00:02:17,436 perhaps the most popular player of all, 38 00:02:17,505 --> 00:02:21,607 a lonely little misfit, planet Pluto. 39 00:02:21,675 --> 00:02:24,877 But recently Pluto lost its starring role, 40 00:02:24,945 --> 00:02:28,347 and some folks are blaming that on me. 41 00:02:32,653 --> 00:02:37,623 I, Neil deGrasse Tyson, director of the Hayden Planetarium, 42 00:02:37,691 --> 00:02:42,127 in New York City, have been accused of being... 43 00:02:42,196 --> 00:02:44,396 a Pluto hater. 44 00:02:48,402 --> 00:02:53,906 Back in 2000, when my colleagues and I were designing this place, 45 00:02:53,974 --> 00:02:55,407 instead of exhibiting Pluto here 46 00:02:55,476 --> 00:02:58,777 with planets like Earth and Mars, 47 00:02:58,846 --> 00:03:03,248 or up there with giants like Jupiter and Saturn, 48 00:03:03,317 --> 00:03:09,621 we decided to boldly go where no planetarium had gone before 49 00:03:09,690 --> 00:03:13,659 and put Pluto far, far away... 50 00:03:13,727 --> 00:03:15,527 all the way downstairs 51 00:03:15,596 --> 00:03:17,963 with a group of newly discovered icy objects 52 00:03:18,032 --> 00:03:20,432 in the outer solar system. 53 00:03:20,501 --> 00:03:24,203 If you look hard enough, you can find it right here. 54 00:03:26,974 --> 00:03:31,643 Little did I know how much this decision would change my life. 55 00:03:31,712 --> 00:03:34,546 My troubles began with the astute observation 56 00:03:34,615 --> 00:03:36,281 of one young visitor. 57 00:03:36,350 --> 00:03:38,150 I can't find Pluto! 58 00:03:38,219 --> 00:03:41,420 TYSON: Who, just my luck, was overheard by an off-duty journalist 59 00:03:41,488 --> 00:03:44,489 from the New York Times. 60 00:03:44,558 --> 00:03:47,092 He decides this is a great story, 61 00:03:47,161 --> 00:03:50,162 so he calls his Times colleague, science writer Kenneth Chang, 62 00:03:50,231 --> 00:03:52,998 and he's shocked. 63 00:03:53,067 --> 00:03:54,766 CHANG: Well, I was looking for Pluto and I couldn't find it. 64 00:03:54,835 --> 00:03:57,970 You look everywhere, you see eight planets, not nine. 65 00:03:59,607 --> 00:04:03,542 TYSON: A few days later, Chang's story hits the front page, 66 00:04:03,611 --> 00:04:06,812 right beneath George W.'s inauguration. 67 00:04:06,880 --> 00:04:11,350 The headline reads: "Pluto's Not a Planet? Only in New York." 68 00:04:15,723 --> 00:04:17,522 I received angry e-mails... 69 00:04:17,591 --> 00:04:20,459 and tons of letters, 70 00:04:20,527 --> 00:04:24,029 especially from pissed-off third graders. 71 00:04:24,098 --> 00:04:26,131 BOY: "Dear Natural History Museum, 72 00:04:26,200 --> 00:04:28,200 Pluto is my favorite planet!" 73 00:04:28,269 --> 00:04:30,135 GIRL: "Why can't Pluto be a planet? 74 00:04:30,204 --> 00:04:32,137 "Please write back, but not in cursive 75 00:04:32,206 --> 00:04:34,306 because I can't read in cursive." 76 00:04:34,375 --> 00:04:35,907 MIKE NOVACEK: I thought, "Oh, my gosh, 77 00:04:35,976 --> 00:04:37,909 "kids will probably go to this exhibit and cry 78 00:04:37,978 --> 00:04:40,178 because Pluto's no longer a planet." 79 00:04:40,247 --> 00:04:42,981 Could it be the final indignity 80 00:04:43,050 --> 00:04:45,450 for the farthest and smallest planet in our solar system? 81 00:04:45,519 --> 00:04:49,354 TYSON: Our exhibit had stirred up a media frenzy. 82 00:04:49,423 --> 00:04:52,791 Pluto was, since 1930, a planet-- 83 00:04:52,860 --> 00:04:54,993 he had stature, he had friends. 84 00:04:55,062 --> 00:04:57,729 You come along and say, "Da, da, da, da, da!" 85 00:04:57,798 --> 00:04:59,064 DIANE SAWYER: Neil deGrasse Tyson, 86 00:04:59,133 --> 00:05:07,873 you have left a void in the universe as big as Pluto. 87 00:05:07,941 --> 00:05:09,841 I never wanted to kick Pluto out of the solar system; 88 00:05:09,910 --> 00:05:11,910 I just wanted to group it with its icy brethren. 89 00:05:11,979 --> 00:05:13,145 COLBERT: Are you saying Pluto should be 90 00:05:13,213 --> 00:05:15,814 with its own kind, separate but equal? 91 00:05:15,883 --> 00:05:17,616 Yeah, I guess it comes out that way, doesn't it? 92 00:05:17,685 --> 00:05:20,752 Neil deGrasse Tyson has betrayed us. 93 00:05:20,821 --> 00:05:24,356 He has thrown his weight around a little bit too much. 94 00:05:24,425 --> 00:05:27,826 He's not the boss of the solar system; he's not the boss of me. 95 00:05:32,066 --> 00:05:34,833 TYSON: If Neptune or Mercury had been reclassified, 96 00:05:34,902 --> 00:05:37,135 I don't think anybody would have cared. 97 00:05:37,204 --> 00:05:39,838 But the fact that it happened to Pluto 98 00:05:39,907 --> 00:05:41,640 seems to make all the difference. 99 00:05:41,709 --> 00:05:45,277 Pluto has a remarkable grip on the hearts and minds 100 00:05:45,346 --> 00:05:47,779 of the American public and the press. 101 00:05:49,016 --> 00:05:50,349 Hat. 102 00:05:50,417 --> 00:05:53,552 Even my colleagues in astrophysics are still arguing 103 00:05:53,620 --> 00:05:57,289 over what to do with Pluto and I don't really know why. 104 00:05:59,793 --> 00:06:01,693 But I'm determined to find out. 105 00:06:01,762 --> 00:06:05,430 This is the story of my journey. 106 00:06:05,499 --> 00:06:08,467 These are "The Pluto Files." 107 00:06:14,208 --> 00:06:16,875 My first stop took me to Cambridge, Massachusetts. 108 00:06:20,247 --> 00:06:22,180 A visit to the hallowed halls of Harvard 109 00:06:22,249 --> 00:06:25,417 just might help me make sense of this Pluto problem. 110 00:06:26,720 --> 00:06:29,354 Welcome to the Harvard University... 111 00:06:29,423 --> 00:06:31,256 football field. 112 00:06:32,760 --> 00:06:34,960 I brought a few props along with me, 113 00:06:35,028 --> 00:06:37,195 much to the surprise of my colleagues. 114 00:06:37,264 --> 00:06:39,197 (grunts) 115 00:06:39,266 --> 00:06:44,736 Astrophysicist Brian Marsden doesn't think Pluto is a planet, 116 00:06:44,805 --> 00:06:48,840 while planetary scientist Mark Sykes thinks it definitely is. 117 00:06:48,909 --> 00:06:52,511 And the esteemed historian of science, Owen Gingerich, 118 00:06:52,579 --> 00:06:54,379 is looking for the middle ground. 119 00:06:54,448 --> 00:06:57,416 SYKES: Okay, Neil, what are we doing here? 120 00:06:57,484 --> 00:06:59,551 We're making a scale model of the solar system 121 00:06:59,620 --> 00:07:03,155 right here on this playing field, so grab one of these. 122 00:07:03,223 --> 00:07:04,156 Let's do it. 123 00:07:04,224 --> 00:07:05,223 And let's do it. 124 00:07:09,730 --> 00:07:11,897 TYSON: To evaluate Pluto's planetary status, 125 00:07:11,965 --> 00:07:14,433 we need to take a closer look at how it compares 126 00:07:14,501 --> 00:07:17,836 with the heavy hitters on the solar system team. 127 00:07:17,905 --> 00:07:21,406 The planets are millions, even billions, of miles apart, 128 00:07:21,475 --> 00:07:24,109 so this scale model can't accurately depict their distance 129 00:07:24,178 --> 00:07:25,444 from one another. 130 00:07:25,512 --> 00:07:28,413 But it can show their relative size. 131 00:07:28,482 --> 00:07:32,050 If this eight-foot balloon represents our sun, 132 00:07:32,119 --> 00:07:35,220 how does Pluto size up against the rest of the team? 133 00:07:35,289 --> 00:07:37,856 Let's find out. 134 00:07:37,925 --> 00:07:39,491 TYSON: Mark, first up... 135 00:07:39,560 --> 00:07:40,826 Mercury. Mercury. 136 00:07:40,894 --> 00:07:42,327 Represented by a bead. 137 00:07:42,396 --> 00:07:44,729 In correct size relative to the sun. 138 00:07:44,798 --> 00:07:45,764 Here we go. 139 00:07:47,434 --> 00:07:50,202 TYSON: Miniscule Mercury may be small, 140 00:07:50,270 --> 00:07:54,206 but its diameter is still twice as big as puny Pluto's. 141 00:07:54,274 --> 00:07:56,107 Next up, Venus-- you have the honor. 142 00:07:56,176 --> 00:07:58,009 Thank you. 143 00:07:58,078 --> 00:08:01,112 TYSON: Venus, represented by this tiny rubber ball, 144 00:08:01,181 --> 00:08:03,849 has a diameter five times as big as Pluto. 145 00:08:05,285 --> 00:08:07,285 Earth. Earth. 146 00:08:07,354 --> 00:08:12,691 TYSON: Earth, the big blue marble, is six times as wide as Pluto. 147 00:08:12,759 --> 00:08:15,026 Earth and Venus were about an inch; 148 00:08:15,095 --> 00:08:16,862 Mars would be about a half inch-- 149 00:08:16,930 --> 00:08:20,198 the sizes of these gumdrops, relative to the sun. 150 00:08:20,267 --> 00:08:24,102 TYSON: But it still trounces Pluto three to one. 151 00:08:24,171 --> 00:08:25,604 Jupiter. Jupiter. 152 00:08:25,672 --> 00:08:27,038 King of the planets. King of the planets. 153 00:08:27,107 --> 00:08:29,207 You have the honor. There you go. 154 00:08:29,276 --> 00:08:31,343 TYSON: The largest planet, King Jupiter, 155 00:08:31,411 --> 00:08:33,745 represented by a schoolyard kickball, 156 00:08:33,814 --> 00:08:38,250 is a whopping 62 times as wide as pipsqueak Pluto. 157 00:08:38,318 --> 00:08:39,417 Saturn. Saturn. 158 00:08:39,486 --> 00:08:40,952 The size of a bowling ball 159 00:08:41,021 --> 00:08:43,355 relative to the sun. 160 00:08:43,423 --> 00:08:44,890 TYSON: Pluto doesn't fare much better 161 00:08:44,958 --> 00:08:46,658 against my favorite planet, Saturn, 162 00:08:46,727 --> 00:08:48,260 or its next-door neighbor. 163 00:08:48,328 --> 00:08:49,427 Uranus. Uranus. 164 00:08:49,496 --> 00:08:50,795 Represented by a bocce ball. 165 00:08:50,864 --> 00:08:52,330 You ever play bocce? 166 00:08:52,399 --> 00:08:53,565 No, I've never played bocce. Neither have I. 167 00:08:53,634 --> 00:08:55,500 (both laugh) 168 00:08:55,569 --> 00:08:57,903 TYSON: It would take 22 Plutos on a chain 169 00:08:57,971 --> 00:09:00,272 to equal the diameter of one Uranus. 170 00:09:00,340 --> 00:09:01,973 Croquet, anyone? 171 00:09:02,042 --> 00:09:03,508 What do you have now? 172 00:09:03,577 --> 00:09:04,576 Neptune. Neptune. 173 00:09:04,645 --> 00:09:05,844 Why don't you have the honor? 174 00:09:07,614 --> 00:09:12,250 TYSON: Big blue Neptune is 21 times as wide as Pluto. 175 00:09:12,319 --> 00:09:14,386 Last and least? 176 00:09:14,454 --> 00:09:15,620 And not least. 177 00:09:15,689 --> 00:09:17,522 We have Pluto. 178 00:09:17,591 --> 00:09:19,691 Represented by a ball bearing 179 00:09:19,760 --> 00:09:22,127 removed from a roller skate. 180 00:09:22,195 --> 00:09:23,628 Ah. 181 00:09:23,697 --> 00:09:25,564 Sometimes the most valuable things 182 00:09:25,632 --> 00:09:27,232 are in the smallest packages. 183 00:09:27,301 --> 00:09:28,233 There you go. 184 00:09:31,939 --> 00:09:33,371 Excellent. Pluto. 185 00:09:35,742 --> 00:09:39,511 TYSON: Pluto's diameter is just under 1,500 miles. 186 00:09:39,580 --> 00:09:42,514 In fact, if it ever decided to visit America, 187 00:09:42,583 --> 00:09:45,784 it would stretch only from California to Kansas. 188 00:09:45,852 --> 00:09:47,819 No matter how you look at it, 189 00:09:47,888 --> 00:09:50,822 Pluto makes a scrawny little planet. 190 00:09:50,891 --> 00:09:52,624 Pluto's really puny, right? 191 00:09:52,693 --> 00:09:54,025 But so is Mercury. 192 00:09:54,094 --> 00:09:56,494 Pluto's a lot punier-- 193 00:09:56,563 --> 00:09:58,330 1/20th the mass of Mercury. 194 00:09:58,398 --> 00:10:00,065 Of Mercury. 195 00:10:00,133 --> 00:10:01,266 GINGERICH: That's less than the mass of the moon. 196 00:10:01,335 --> 00:10:03,868 Touchdown right there. 197 00:10:03,937 --> 00:10:05,904 (laughing) 198 00:10:05,973 --> 00:10:08,840 TYSON: If we were to keep score of Pluto's oddball traits 199 00:10:08,909 --> 00:10:11,209 versus its planetlike characteristics, 200 00:10:11,278 --> 00:10:13,511 how would it add up? 201 00:10:13,580 --> 00:10:17,749 Brian thinks Pluto's puny size disqualifies it 202 00:10:17,818 --> 00:10:19,851 from the planet team. 203 00:10:19,920 --> 00:10:22,921 So he gives one touchdown and, of course, the extra point, 204 00:10:22,990 --> 00:10:24,489 to Pluto the oddball. 205 00:10:24,558 --> 00:10:25,624 This is ridiculous. 206 00:10:25,692 --> 00:10:27,092 MARSDEN: It's not ridiculous. 207 00:10:27,160 --> 00:10:28,259 TYSON: Mark disagrees. 208 00:10:28,328 --> 00:10:31,563 For him, size is less important than shape. 209 00:10:31,632 --> 00:10:36,768 Pluto, like every player on our planet team, is round 210 00:10:36,837 --> 00:10:40,905 and not potato-shaped like nearly all asteroids. 211 00:10:40,974 --> 00:10:44,376 This sequence of images taken by the Hubble Space Telescope, 212 00:10:44,444 --> 00:10:48,613 shows Pluto as a sphere with a textured surface. 213 00:10:48,682 --> 00:10:50,215 SYKES: When we fly our spaceship to Pluto, 214 00:10:50,283 --> 00:10:54,152 we will arrive at a round world that has an atmosphere, 215 00:10:54,221 --> 00:10:56,655 that has bright and dark areas on the surface. 216 00:10:56,723 --> 00:10:59,324 And it will look much more like 217 00:10:59,393 --> 00:11:01,259 objects we call planets 218 00:11:01,328 --> 00:11:04,062 than these little irregular inert objects we call asteroids. 219 00:11:04,131 --> 00:11:06,431 So, roundness... you give it a full touchdown. 220 00:11:06,500 --> 00:11:07,232 Yeah. 221 00:11:07,300 --> 00:11:08,633 Two touchdowns. 222 00:11:08,702 --> 00:11:10,769 (all laughing) 223 00:11:13,640 --> 00:11:14,873 TYSON: But then again... 224 00:11:14,941 --> 00:11:18,243 We all know Pluto's got this really weird orbit. 225 00:11:19,980 --> 00:11:21,680 First of all, it's tipped. 226 00:11:21,748 --> 00:11:23,248 The most tipped orbit. 227 00:11:23,316 --> 00:11:24,315 What's that worth to you? 228 00:11:24,384 --> 00:11:25,784 MARSDEN: Not too much. 229 00:11:25,852 --> 00:11:28,720 A field goal; not quite a touchdown. 230 00:11:28,789 --> 00:11:30,021 That isn't really the problem. 231 00:11:30,090 --> 00:11:32,257 I think the problem was crossing the orbit of Neptune. 232 00:11:32,325 --> 00:11:36,828 TYSON: Pluto's orbit isn't just tipped, it's highly elliptical-- 233 00:11:36,897 --> 00:11:39,764 not nearly circular like other planets-- 234 00:11:39,833 --> 00:11:41,800 which actually forces Pluto 235 00:11:41,868 --> 00:11:43,935 to cross the orbit of another planet. 236 00:11:44,004 --> 00:11:45,136 That's bad. 237 00:11:45,205 --> 00:11:46,771 That is really bad. Nobody else does that. 238 00:11:46,840 --> 00:11:49,374 There you go, touchdown right there. 239 00:11:49,443 --> 00:11:52,043 Another seven points for the oddball team. 240 00:11:52,112 --> 00:11:53,812 One way you might define a planet 241 00:11:53,880 --> 00:11:55,346 is that it ought to have a moon, 242 00:11:55,415 --> 00:11:56,581 but of course Mercury and Venus don't have moons. 243 00:11:56,650 --> 00:11:58,717 And guess what? 244 00:11:58,785 --> 00:12:00,719 Tiny little Pluto does. 245 00:12:00,787 --> 00:12:03,221 In fact, it has three. 246 00:12:03,290 --> 00:12:07,158 One of those moons, Charon, is so large compared with Pluto 247 00:12:07,227 --> 00:12:11,196 that they both orbit a point in space in between them. 248 00:12:11,264 --> 00:12:15,033 Which might make you wonder, which one is the planet? 249 00:12:16,870 --> 00:12:21,673 The idea of planets orbiting planets isn't really so foreign. 250 00:12:21,742 --> 00:12:23,708 We see many double stars out there 251 00:12:23,777 --> 00:12:25,310 and we see galaxies orbiting galaxies. 252 00:12:25,378 --> 00:12:28,880 The solar system is such a complicated place, 253 00:12:28,949 --> 00:12:31,149 it's very important to understand 254 00:12:31,218 --> 00:12:33,284 there is this richness out there. 255 00:12:33,353 --> 00:12:34,986 So, Brian, if we go there 256 00:12:35,055 --> 00:12:38,389 and we find out Pluto has mountains or craters 257 00:12:38,458 --> 00:12:40,258 or an atmosphere, 258 00:12:40,327 --> 00:12:42,627 it's got world properties that match other objects 259 00:12:42,696 --> 00:12:44,095 we are happy to call planets. 260 00:12:44,164 --> 00:12:49,501 I'm able to use the word "world" if you like, but "planet"? 261 00:12:49,569 --> 00:12:51,770 TYSON: So, then, what is Pluto? 262 00:12:54,441 --> 00:12:56,841 Four billion miles from the sun, 263 00:12:56,910 --> 00:12:59,477 our best images of Pluto and its moons 264 00:12:59,546 --> 00:13:02,013 are nothing more than a blur. 265 00:13:02,082 --> 00:13:05,316 By analyzing the light reflected from Pluto's surface, 266 00:13:05,385 --> 00:13:07,952 planetary scientists think that a day on Pluto 267 00:13:08,021 --> 00:13:10,555 might look like this: 268 00:13:10,624 --> 00:13:13,992 an icy, frosty winter's night in the Arctic; 269 00:13:14,060 --> 00:13:17,829 the sun a tiny pinpoint in a pitch-black sky; 270 00:13:17,898 --> 00:13:21,533 wispy clouds and fog visible on the horizon; 271 00:13:21,601 --> 00:13:26,938 the temperature about 300 degrees below zero. 272 00:13:27,007 --> 00:13:29,674 No spacecraft has yet visited Pluto. 273 00:13:29,743 --> 00:13:33,344 Until one does, it will remain a mystery. 274 00:13:33,413 --> 00:13:35,280 Both of you are wrong. 275 00:13:35,348 --> 00:13:38,149 And no scoreboard today is going to change that. 276 00:13:38,218 --> 00:13:39,884 (explosion) 277 00:13:39,953 --> 00:13:42,086 It was time for me to take a closer look 278 00:13:42,155 --> 00:13:43,855 at why an oddball like Pluto 279 00:13:43,924 --> 00:13:46,758 was considered a planet in the first place. 280 00:13:50,297 --> 00:13:53,298 It's a tale that begins back in 1894 281 00:13:53,366 --> 00:13:56,901 when a New England aristocrat by the name of Percival Lowell 282 00:13:56,970 --> 00:14:00,638 built a private observatory near Flagstaff, Arizona, 283 00:14:00,707 --> 00:14:06,711 with one goal in mind: to find life on Mars. 284 00:14:09,082 --> 00:14:11,115 After years of searching in vain, 285 00:14:11,184 --> 00:14:14,018 Lowell turned his attention to an unsolved mystery: 286 00:14:14,087 --> 00:14:16,154 the hunt for a distant planet 287 00:14:16,223 --> 00:14:18,456 whose gravity seemed to be causing disturbances 288 00:14:18,525 --> 00:14:21,226 in Neptune's orbit. 289 00:14:21,294 --> 00:14:24,596 He called this hypothetical object Planet X. 290 00:14:24,664 --> 00:14:27,265 Lowell spent the rest of his life trying to find it 291 00:14:27,334 --> 00:14:29,300 but never did. 292 00:14:31,338 --> 00:14:32,871 After his death, 293 00:14:32,939 --> 00:14:36,174 the task was given to the unlikeliest of planet hunters, 294 00:14:36,243 --> 00:14:41,179 a self-educated farm boy who attended a one-room schoolhouse. 295 00:14:41,248 --> 00:14:43,648 Clyde Tombaugh's first job in astronomy 296 00:14:43,717 --> 00:14:45,884 included cleaning telescopes and sweeping up 297 00:14:45,952 --> 00:14:48,753 at the Lowell Observatory. 298 00:14:48,822 --> 00:14:50,822 He spent the rest of his time searching 299 00:14:50,891 --> 00:14:52,891 for the mysterious Planet X. 300 00:14:55,662 --> 00:14:58,129 Every few nights he placed a photosensitive glass plate 301 00:14:58,198 --> 00:15:00,331 on the telescope, 302 00:15:00,400 --> 00:15:02,600 securing it so it would not shift. 303 00:15:04,304 --> 00:15:08,806 Then he exposed the plate for two hours to the universe. 304 00:15:10,143 --> 00:15:13,311 During that time the motorized telescope slowly moved 305 00:15:13,380 --> 00:15:16,347 to compensate for Earth's rotation. 306 00:15:18,752 --> 00:15:21,085 Several days later he'd retrace his steps, 307 00:15:21,154 --> 00:15:23,454 taking pictures of the same section of the sky 308 00:15:23,523 --> 00:15:25,990 he had photographed earlier. 309 00:15:26,059 --> 00:15:29,794 Then, using an ingenious device called a blink comparator, 310 00:15:29,863 --> 00:15:32,597 Clyde Tombaugh aligned the two images 311 00:15:32,666 --> 00:15:34,799 to carefully examine their differences. 312 00:15:37,504 --> 00:15:40,705 The blink comparator enabled him to shift back and forth, 313 00:15:40,774 --> 00:15:43,474 searching for the subtlest of changes. 314 00:15:45,979 --> 00:15:49,080 Although the human eye is good at spotting differences, 315 00:15:49,149 --> 00:15:52,383 finding a dim celestial object billions of miles away 316 00:15:52,452 --> 00:15:54,419 was a daunting task. 317 00:15:58,191 --> 00:16:00,892 After searching for almost a year, 318 00:16:00,961 --> 00:16:04,462 a determined Clyde finally found a tiny dot 319 00:16:04,531 --> 00:16:07,565 slowly moving across the night sky. 320 00:16:09,803 --> 00:16:11,336 Can you see it? 321 00:16:13,974 --> 00:16:15,273 Here it is. 322 00:16:19,846 --> 00:16:22,747 A month later the Lowell Observatory proudly announced 323 00:16:22,816 --> 00:16:24,882 that a young assistant had fulfilled 324 00:16:24,951 --> 00:16:27,418 Percival Lowell's dream. 325 00:16:27,487 --> 00:16:31,122 Clyde Tombaugh had finally found Planet X. 326 00:16:33,760 --> 00:16:35,593 The day after the announcement, 327 00:16:35,662 --> 00:16:38,696 the news hit the front page of the New York Times. 328 00:16:38,765 --> 00:16:43,001 Soon the discovery was heralded worldwide. 329 00:16:46,039 --> 00:16:49,340 But the new planet needed a name. 330 00:16:49,409 --> 00:16:51,976 Across the Atlantic, an 11-year-old English schoolgirl 331 00:16:52,045 --> 00:16:55,513 would come up with one. 332 00:16:55,582 --> 00:16:59,751 On March 14, 1930, Venetia Burney's grandfather, 333 00:16:59,819 --> 00:17:02,653 a librarian at Oxford, was reading the morning newspaper 334 00:17:02,722 --> 00:17:05,423 and came across the story. 335 00:17:05,492 --> 00:17:09,694 An American has just discovered a new planet. 336 00:17:09,763 --> 00:17:13,464 I wonder what they'll call it. 337 00:17:13,533 --> 00:17:17,135 TYSON: Venetia had just finished studying the Roman gods 338 00:17:17,203 --> 00:17:19,270 and jumped at the opportunity to name it 339 00:17:19,339 --> 00:17:21,039 after the god of the underworld. 340 00:17:21,107 --> 00:17:22,707 They could call it Pluto. 341 00:17:22,776 --> 00:17:25,910 Pluto. 342 00:17:25,979 --> 00:17:28,246 Perhaps... yes. 343 00:17:30,150 --> 00:17:33,317 TYSON: Her grandfather thought that was a splendid idea, 344 00:17:33,386 --> 00:17:37,522 so he wrote a note to the Lowell Observatory. 345 00:17:37,590 --> 00:17:39,524 The director at Lowell liked it, 346 00:17:39,592 --> 00:17:42,093 especially because Pluto's official symbol 347 00:17:42,162 --> 00:17:45,296 would be the overlapping letters P and L, 348 00:17:45,365 --> 00:17:48,199 the initials of the observatory's long-gone founder, 349 00:17:48,268 --> 00:17:53,271 the man who started the search for Planet X, Percival Lowell. 350 00:17:55,975 --> 00:17:57,975 For most Americans, 351 00:17:58,044 --> 00:18:01,879 the name "Pluto" didn't exactly conjure up affection. 352 00:18:01,948 --> 00:18:04,549 It was associated with a well-known laxative 353 00:18:04,617 --> 00:18:08,186 called "Pluto Water," a popular product that promised 354 00:18:08,254 --> 00:18:12,423 "relief from constipation in 30 minutes to two hours." 355 00:18:12,492 --> 00:18:16,894 Its slogan: "When Nature won't, Pluto will." 356 00:18:19,666 --> 00:18:21,532 But the name would soon get a makeover... 357 00:18:25,472 --> 00:18:27,605 And it would come from a young animator 358 00:18:27,674 --> 00:18:31,209 by the name of Walt Disney. 359 00:18:32,779 --> 00:18:35,246 Shortly after planet Pluto was discovered, 360 00:18:35,315 --> 00:18:37,148 the fledgling Disney Brothers Studio 361 00:18:37,217 --> 00:18:38,649 came up with a new character... 362 00:18:38,718 --> 00:18:40,518 (barking) 363 00:18:40,587 --> 00:18:44,222 a playful bloodhound named Pluto the Pup. 364 00:18:47,327 --> 00:18:50,027 Walt probably wasn't thinking about constipation 365 00:18:50,096 --> 00:18:53,297 when he named Mickey's new pal back in 1931. 366 00:18:55,502 --> 00:18:59,036 My journey would lead me south to a magical place 367 00:18:59,105 --> 00:19:02,306 to meet with a celebrity on a tight schedule. 368 00:19:05,345 --> 00:19:07,345 Pluto! Hey! 369 00:19:10,650 --> 00:19:12,150 It's great to see you! 370 00:19:12,218 --> 00:19:14,051 Thanks for making time for this. 371 00:19:14,120 --> 00:19:17,021 Can we pose for a picture? 372 00:19:17,090 --> 00:19:21,092 Was Walt thinking planet when he gave his pup a name? 373 00:19:21,161 --> 00:19:24,428 Maybe Roy Patrick Disney, Walt's great-nephew, 374 00:19:24,497 --> 00:19:26,831 can help answer this question. 375 00:19:26,900 --> 00:19:29,534 I wonder whether Walt jumped on the opportunity 376 00:19:29,602 --> 00:19:33,671 to name this new character after this new cosmic object. 377 00:19:33,740 --> 00:19:35,840 Is there any evidence for that in the archives? 378 00:19:35,909 --> 00:19:38,142 There's no direct evidence. 379 00:19:38,211 --> 00:19:40,511 There's a lot of anecdotal evidence. 380 00:19:40,580 --> 00:19:42,914 I think it's fate; I don't think it's an accident. 381 00:19:42,982 --> 00:19:45,349 You feel deep inside that Walt was thinking of the planet. 382 00:19:45,418 --> 00:19:46,751 Yes. 383 00:19:46,819 --> 00:19:50,888 He was fascinated with space and space exploration 384 00:19:50,957 --> 00:19:53,991 and Walt did four TV shows about space 385 00:19:54,060 --> 00:19:57,995 and all of them made space exploration and science 386 00:19:58,064 --> 00:20:00,698 accessible to kids, including myself. 387 00:20:00,767 --> 00:20:04,335 When he did his Man in Space series in 1956, '57, 388 00:20:04,404 --> 00:20:07,939 America wasn't committed to a space program. 389 00:20:08,007 --> 00:20:10,374 I know for a fact that many people who wound up 390 00:20:10,443 --> 00:20:12,710 working at NASA were inspired to do so 391 00:20:12,779 --> 00:20:15,346 by watching those television shows. 392 00:20:15,415 --> 00:20:18,182 He made learning fun. 393 00:20:18,251 --> 00:20:20,117 TYSON: I am certain Pluto the Dog 394 00:20:20,186 --> 00:20:24,055 added some kind of warm and fuzzy feeling 395 00:20:24,123 --> 00:20:25,623 for this cosmic object. 396 00:20:25,692 --> 00:20:27,225 Cosmic objects don't normally trigger 397 00:20:27,293 --> 00:20:28,659 warm and fuzzy feelings. 398 00:20:30,763 --> 00:20:32,763 Pluto, have you ever looked through a telescope before? 399 00:20:32,832 --> 00:20:33,998 No? 400 00:20:34,067 --> 00:20:35,199 I brought one. 401 00:20:35,268 --> 00:20:36,400 Isn't it cool? 402 00:20:36,469 --> 00:20:38,202 Now, it's daytime, so you can't see much, 403 00:20:38,271 --> 00:20:40,304 but let me show you how it works. 404 00:20:40,373 --> 00:20:41,706 What do you think of that? 405 00:20:43,910 --> 00:20:45,343 Did you see something? 406 00:20:45,411 --> 00:20:46,577 You did? Try again. 407 00:20:55,421 --> 00:20:57,221 TYSON: Whether or not Walt was thinking about the cosmos 408 00:20:57,290 --> 00:20:58,756 when he named his dog doesn't really matter. 409 00:20:58,825 --> 00:21:01,425 Good boy! Good dog! 410 00:21:01,494 --> 00:21:04,095 The seeds were sown for the tiniest of planets 411 00:21:04,163 --> 00:21:07,398 to get the kind of attention no other planet had, 412 00:21:07,467 --> 00:21:10,134 all because of this lovable pup. 413 00:21:14,140 --> 00:21:17,008 But I shouldn't give credit to the dog alone. 414 00:21:21,781 --> 00:21:26,217 Next stop on my journey: Streator, Illinois... 415 00:21:32,492 --> 00:21:36,761 the hometown of Clyde Tombaugh. 416 00:21:36,829 --> 00:21:40,031 They love him so much, Main Street is named after him. 417 00:21:42,502 --> 00:21:44,769 There's a mural in the center of town 418 00:21:44,837 --> 00:21:47,638 that compares his discovery of Pluto 419 00:21:47,707 --> 00:21:50,975 with the accomplishments of Copernicus and Galileo. 420 00:21:51,044 --> 00:21:55,012 His life is chronicled at the local historical society, 421 00:21:55,081 --> 00:21:58,382 where one of his homemade telescopes is on display. 422 00:21:58,451 --> 00:22:02,720 There's even a plaque dedicated to him in front of city hall. 423 00:22:05,625 --> 00:22:08,159 Clyde is a local hero. 424 00:22:08,227 --> 00:22:11,429 Just about everyone around here can tell you his life story. 425 00:22:11,497 --> 00:22:13,931 Next victim-- I mean customer-- please. 426 00:22:14,000 --> 00:22:16,634 (laughing) 427 00:22:16,703 --> 00:22:18,169 How you doing? 428 00:22:18,237 --> 00:22:20,104 Doing well. 429 00:22:20,173 --> 00:22:22,373 TYSON: Right now I'm on a pilgrimage, actually, 430 00:22:22,442 --> 00:22:23,574 to try to understand 431 00:22:23,643 --> 00:22:25,176 Clyde Tombaugh. 432 00:22:25,244 --> 00:22:26,644 Clyde Tombaugh? 433 00:22:26,713 --> 00:22:28,045 He's from Streator and he discovered Pluto. 434 00:22:28,114 --> 00:22:30,214 TYSON: That's what I heard. 435 00:22:30,283 --> 00:22:32,316 We're very proud of him, very proud of him, what he did. 436 00:22:32,385 --> 00:22:34,585 TYSON: And you learned about him in high school? 437 00:22:34,654 --> 00:22:35,786 Elementary school. 438 00:22:35,855 --> 00:22:37,388 Third grade maybe. 439 00:22:37,457 --> 00:22:39,523 Because that's when most people first learn about the planets. 440 00:22:39,592 --> 00:22:41,726 And then... so, his name comes up 441 00:22:41,794 --> 00:22:42,993 and you learn he's a local guy. 442 00:22:43,062 --> 00:22:44,628 Streator boy makes good, so to speak. 443 00:22:44,697 --> 00:22:46,063 Back in third grade I thought, 444 00:22:46,132 --> 00:22:48,232 "Wow, that's astounding, from Streator, found Pluto." 445 00:22:48,301 --> 00:22:49,600 TYSON: You feel some pride. 446 00:22:49,669 --> 00:22:50,634 Oh, you bet. 447 00:22:50,703 --> 00:22:52,269 Always did. 448 00:22:52,338 --> 00:22:54,605 Always had something to point to as far as... 449 00:22:54,674 --> 00:22:56,774 look at there, that guy, he discovered Pluto. 450 00:22:56,843 --> 00:22:58,976 And he's from our area. 451 00:22:59,045 --> 00:23:00,945 Walt Disney named a dog after him. 452 00:23:01,013 --> 00:23:03,647 There you go. 453 00:23:03,716 --> 00:23:07,218 So, how do you feel about Pluto, Dr. Tyson? 454 00:23:09,188 --> 00:23:12,189 TYSON: In the eyes of the townfolk of Streator, Illinois, 455 00:23:12,258 --> 00:23:15,559 Tombaugh's discovery is not only part of their history, 456 00:23:15,628 --> 00:23:19,864 it's a piece of American history as well as world history. 457 00:23:22,034 --> 00:23:23,701 It was the ancient Greeks who classified 458 00:23:23,770 --> 00:23:27,204 what we call the moon, the sun, Mercury, Venus, Mars, 459 00:23:27,273 --> 00:23:29,440 Jupiter and Saturn as planetes, 460 00:23:29,509 --> 00:23:32,209 which means "the wanderers" in English. 461 00:23:32,278 --> 00:23:33,911 They imagined Earth as a hub 462 00:23:33,980 --> 00:23:36,614 around which these planets revolved. 463 00:23:36,682 --> 00:23:40,684 In 1543, the Polish astronomer Nicolaus Copernicus 464 00:23:40,753 --> 00:23:42,820 published his revolutionary idea 465 00:23:42,889 --> 00:23:45,423 that the sun did not circle Earth 466 00:23:45,491 --> 00:23:48,793 but instead Earth and its lone moon circles the sun, 467 00:23:48,861 --> 00:23:50,961 along with the rest of the planets. 468 00:23:53,599 --> 00:23:57,501 By the 17th century, the Italian astronomer Galileo Galilei 469 00:23:57,570 --> 00:24:00,738 discovered Jupiter's four largest moons. 470 00:24:00,807 --> 00:24:03,908 Meanwhile, Dutchman Christiaan Huygens 471 00:24:03,976 --> 00:24:06,677 identified Saturn's rings and discovered Titan, 472 00:24:06,746 --> 00:24:08,245 its largest moon. 473 00:24:08,314 --> 00:24:11,849 Italian astronomer Giovanni Cassini one-upped him 474 00:24:11,918 --> 00:24:14,218 when he discovered four more. 475 00:24:14,287 --> 00:24:16,720 In the 18th century, 476 00:24:16,789 --> 00:24:19,323 Englishman William Herschel discovered Uranus, 477 00:24:19,392 --> 00:24:22,593 although he originally called it the Georgian Star, 478 00:24:22,662 --> 00:24:25,329 after his king, George III. 479 00:24:25,398 --> 00:24:29,366 Can you imagine a planet named George? 480 00:24:29,435 --> 00:24:30,901 The British and French are still fighting 481 00:24:30,970 --> 00:24:33,137 over who deserves the credit for predicting the location 482 00:24:33,206 --> 00:24:34,738 of Neptune. 483 00:24:34,807 --> 00:24:37,074 Some give the honor to John Couch Adams, 484 00:24:37,143 --> 00:24:40,244 while others say Urbain Le Verrier deserves it. 485 00:24:40,313 --> 00:24:41,779 But there's no doubt 486 00:24:41,848 --> 00:24:46,750 that German astronomer Johann Gottfried Galle found it. 487 00:24:46,819 --> 00:24:49,820 The discovery of Pluto finally added an American, 488 00:24:49,889 --> 00:24:53,090 Clyde Tombaugh, to this short but esteemed list 489 00:24:53,159 --> 00:24:56,093 of planet hunters. 490 00:24:56,162 --> 00:24:57,761 So the folks in Streator, Illinois, 491 00:24:57,830 --> 00:25:00,598 told me that in New Mexico there are still some Tombaughs there. 492 00:25:02,335 --> 00:25:04,535 That's where Clyde moved after discovering Pluto. 493 00:25:04,604 --> 00:25:06,437 Clyde's no longer with us, 494 00:25:06,506 --> 00:25:10,441 but his 97-year-old widow and both his son and daughter 495 00:25:10,510 --> 00:25:12,109 still live there. 496 00:25:12,178 --> 00:25:14,044 So I decided I had to check it out. 497 00:25:14,113 --> 00:25:17,114 Whoa, that's a lot of Tombaughs. 498 00:25:17,183 --> 00:25:18,115 ALL: Hi. 499 00:25:18,184 --> 00:25:19,984 TYSON: How many of you are there? 500 00:25:20,052 --> 00:25:22,520 (laughing) 501 00:25:22,588 --> 00:25:23,754 Hello, everyone. 502 00:25:23,823 --> 00:25:24,955 ALL: Hi. 503 00:25:25,024 --> 00:25:27,291 Annette Tombaugh, I'm Clyde's daughter. 504 00:25:27,360 --> 00:25:28,759 What an honor, my gosh. 505 00:25:28,828 --> 00:25:30,294 And this is my brother.... 506 00:25:30,363 --> 00:25:31,362 Neil, Al Tombaugh. 507 00:25:31,430 --> 00:25:32,396 I'm Clyde's son. 508 00:25:32,465 --> 00:25:33,531 TYSON: Al, pleasure. 509 00:25:33,599 --> 00:25:35,132 And this is my mother, Patricia Tombaugh. 510 00:25:35,201 --> 00:25:36,267 This is Clyde's wife. 511 00:25:36,335 --> 00:25:38,168 It is an honor, hello. 512 00:25:38,237 --> 00:25:40,271 Yes, I've been looking forward to this. 513 00:25:40,339 --> 00:25:42,573 That could be... I don't know what that means. 514 00:25:42,642 --> 00:25:44,942 (all laughing) 515 00:25:45,011 --> 00:25:47,978 So, tell me about Clyde as a person. 516 00:25:48,047 --> 00:25:50,214 He was the oldest of six children, 517 00:25:50,283 --> 00:25:52,850 so he was born to help on the farm. 518 00:25:52,919 --> 00:25:55,019 But he did not want to be a farmer. 519 00:25:55,087 --> 00:25:56,453 ANNETTE: He had not had 520 00:25:56,522 --> 00:25:57,755 the opportunity to go to college. 521 00:25:57,823 --> 00:26:00,224 So what you're saying 522 00:26:00,293 --> 00:26:02,026 is that he discovered Pluto 523 00:26:02,094 --> 00:26:04,695 without ever having yet gone to college. 524 00:26:04,764 --> 00:26:06,830 No, he was straight off e farm. 525 00:26:06,899 --> 00:26:08,632 PATRICIA: Lowell Observatory 526 00:26:08,701 --> 00:26:14,471 wanted somebody they didn't have to pay very much to do this job. 527 00:26:14,540 --> 00:26:16,607 What do you think they pay you for finding a planet? 528 00:26:16,676 --> 00:26:19,677 (all laughing) 529 00:26:19,745 --> 00:26:22,012 ANNETTE: After discovering Pluto, 530 00:26:22,081 --> 00:26:24,915 he got a college scholarship, 531 00:26:24,984 --> 00:26:28,052 which he would not have otherwise had, 532 00:26:28,120 --> 00:26:31,155 and, of course, he was supposed to be the big hero, 533 00:26:31,223 --> 00:26:34,625 but he didn't feel like the big hero. 534 00:26:34,694 --> 00:26:36,794 Dad was a little embarrassed about the fame. 535 00:26:36,862 --> 00:26:38,662 He didn't like the limelight. He was humble. 536 00:26:38,731 --> 00:26:40,097 Absolutely. 537 00:26:40,166 --> 00:26:43,000 So what was he like just as a dad? 538 00:26:43,069 --> 00:26:44,435 Was he like a weird dad? 539 00:26:44,503 --> 00:26:46,370 Or did you think all dads were like that? 540 00:26:46,439 --> 00:26:48,639 No, I knew he was very different. 541 00:26:48,708 --> 00:26:50,407 One of the things, we did have 542 00:26:50,476 --> 00:26:53,611 his grinding barrel to make telescopes in the kitchen. 543 00:26:53,679 --> 00:26:55,646 This is the barrel that grinds glass 544 00:26:55,715 --> 00:26:57,715 into the shape of a mirror. 545 00:26:57,783 --> 00:26:58,949 Right-- yes, in the kitchen. 546 00:26:59,018 --> 00:27:00,784 How mother ever put up with that I don't know. 547 00:27:00,853 --> 00:27:03,587 We had grinding material in our food, 548 00:27:03,656 --> 00:27:06,090 and Mother's trying to cook 549 00:27:06,158 --> 00:27:07,124 around this situation. 550 00:27:07,193 --> 00:27:08,826 Well, finally she made Daddy 551 00:27:08,894 --> 00:27:10,961 move out of the kitchen and he got a shop. 552 00:27:11,030 --> 00:27:12,062 (laughing) 553 00:27:12,131 --> 00:27:13,564 Well, that... that's good. 554 00:27:13,633 --> 00:27:15,599 TYSON: You mean to tell me you have 555 00:27:15,668 --> 00:27:17,101 some of Clyde's original telescopes here? 556 00:27:19,672 --> 00:27:21,071 Whoa! 557 00:27:21,140 --> 00:27:22,940 These were his original telescopes. 558 00:27:23,009 --> 00:27:24,942 Original telescopes built by my Dad. 559 00:27:25,011 --> 00:27:26,210 Very hand-made. 560 00:27:26,278 --> 00:27:28,145 Built out of old farm machinery, 561 00:27:28,214 --> 00:27:30,180 car parts and whatever he could find. 562 00:27:30,249 --> 00:27:31,949 We'll just push it out here. I'll help you push. 563 00:27:32,018 --> 00:27:33,417 You bet. 564 00:27:35,021 --> 00:27:37,888 So, Al, I don't recognize any hardware on this at all. 565 00:27:37,957 --> 00:27:39,356 (chuckling) 566 00:27:39,425 --> 00:27:43,360 The tube itself is probably part of an old grain elevator. 567 00:27:43,429 --> 00:27:44,762 How about the base? 568 00:27:44,830 --> 00:27:47,531 Well, the base is an old cream separator. 569 00:27:47,600 --> 00:27:51,201 The axle is off an early model Buick. 570 00:27:51,270 --> 00:27:53,237 So there's a Buick out there now without an axel. 571 00:27:53,305 --> 00:27:56,073 This counterweight was probably a flywheel 572 00:27:56,142 --> 00:27:57,975 from an early piece of farm equipment, 573 00:27:58,044 --> 00:27:59,777 maybe even steam powered-- we're not sure. 574 00:27:59,845 --> 00:28:00,944 I see a Coke can. 575 00:28:01,013 --> 00:28:02,846 (chuckling): I love this. 576 00:28:02,915 --> 00:28:05,916 So we got the open end of the telescope at the top. 577 00:28:05,985 --> 00:28:10,721 And light comes down, reflects off the curved mirror 578 00:28:10,790 --> 00:28:13,057 and light reflects back 579 00:28:13,125 --> 00:28:15,259 and comes to an eyepiece under that Coke can. 580 00:28:15,327 --> 00:28:18,429 And if we wiggle this Coke can a little bit like this, 581 00:28:18,497 --> 00:28:20,230 there's the eyepiece. 582 00:28:20,299 --> 00:28:23,167 We're ready to go. There it is. 583 00:28:23,235 --> 00:28:25,502 All right, this isn't the only telescope I see back here, Al. 584 00:28:25,571 --> 00:28:26,670 No, there's a couple others. 585 00:28:26,739 --> 00:28:28,439 Let me pull this one out for you. Okay. 586 00:28:31,677 --> 00:28:35,345 This has got to be the most homemade-looking telescope 587 00:28:35,414 --> 00:28:36,547 I have ever seen. 588 00:28:36,615 --> 00:28:37,781 Is this a lawn mower? 589 00:28:37,850 --> 00:28:39,516 That is a lawn mower base. 590 00:28:39,585 --> 00:28:42,786 This is what the family has called the grazer gazer. 591 00:28:42,855 --> 00:28:44,188 He looked at this and said, 592 00:28:44,256 --> 00:28:45,823 "It's got wheels, got a hale. 593 00:28:45,891 --> 00:28:49,460 We need to put a telescope on that so I can push it around." 594 00:28:49,528 --> 00:28:51,628 How to make a portable telescope. Absolutely. 595 00:28:51,697 --> 00:28:54,965 He built it strictly on a utilitarian base 596 00:28:55,034 --> 00:28:57,901 out of what he had, which was thin plywood 597 00:28:57,970 --> 00:28:59,403 and miscellaneous pieces of wood. 598 00:28:59,472 --> 00:29:01,538 This is insane. 599 00:29:01,607 --> 00:29:02,673 This just rotates. 600 00:29:02,742 --> 00:29:04,108 Exactly. 601 00:29:04,176 --> 00:29:07,478 What impresses me is that he didn't care 602 00:29:07,546 --> 00:29:09,046 what this thing looked like 603 00:29:09,115 --> 00:29:12,282 as long as the image of the universe came out sharp. 604 00:29:12,351 --> 00:29:14,151 Right, aesthetics didn't mean a whole lot. 605 00:29:14,220 --> 00:29:15,352 (both laughing) 606 00:29:20,426 --> 00:29:23,060 TYSON: On my way out of town, I stopped at a local church, 607 00:29:23,129 --> 00:29:25,529 where there's a tribute to Clyde Tombaugh... 608 00:29:27,099 --> 00:29:31,001 a stained-glass window that celebrates his life. 609 00:29:43,616 --> 00:29:47,718 How many scientists have stained-glass windows of them? 610 00:29:49,121 --> 00:29:52,222 It's more than just a celebration of his discovery. 611 00:29:52,291 --> 00:29:58,629 Celebration of his life overcoming obstacles 612 00:29:58,697 --> 00:30:00,564 that would keep most people down. 613 00:30:02,735 --> 00:30:05,235 To me that's the message here. 614 00:30:10,142 --> 00:30:11,909 After discovering Pluto, 615 00:30:11,977 --> 00:30:15,312 Clyde taught astronomy and searched for another planet 616 00:30:15,381 --> 00:30:19,349 in the far reaches of the solar system. 617 00:30:19,418 --> 00:30:22,786 But as hard as he and other astronomers looked-- 618 00:30:22,855 --> 00:30:25,689 and they looked hard-- 619 00:30:25,758 --> 00:30:29,626 nobody found anything. 620 00:30:29,695 --> 00:30:31,595 Most abandoned the search, 621 00:30:31,664 --> 00:30:34,431 assuming there was nothing left to find. 622 00:30:34,500 --> 00:30:37,201 But a few simply couldn't accept the prevailing view 623 00:30:37,269 --> 00:30:40,204 that the solar system ended with Pluto. 624 00:30:42,007 --> 00:30:44,241 I headed out to California to share a burger 625 00:30:44,310 --> 00:30:46,043 with two colleagues who were convinced 626 00:30:46,111 --> 00:30:48,212 there was something else out there. 627 00:30:48,280 --> 00:30:50,214 Food's a-comin'. 628 00:30:50,282 --> 00:30:54,218 TYSON: Mike Brown and David Jewitt. 629 00:30:54,286 --> 00:30:56,620 Back in the 1980s, David started a search 630 00:30:56,689 --> 00:30:59,489 that would put Pluto in a new perspective. 631 00:30:59,558 --> 00:31:01,325 TYSON: So you start looking in the outer solar system. 632 00:31:01,393 --> 00:31:03,293 That's kind of crazy because everyone knew 633 00:31:03,362 --> 00:31:04,928 the solar system ended at Pluto. 634 00:31:04,997 --> 00:31:07,798 Uh, it's a little crazy, but, you know, 635 00:31:07,867 --> 00:31:10,133 the flip side is, it didn't seem reasonable. 636 00:31:10,202 --> 00:31:12,402 It seemed peculiar that the outer solar system 637 00:31:12,471 --> 00:31:14,471 would be this really, really empty place, 638 00:31:14,540 --> 00:31:16,640 compared to the inner solar system, which we already knew 639 00:31:16,709 --> 00:31:18,942 was full of planets and comets and asteroids 640 00:31:19,011 --> 00:31:20,244 and all sorts of stuff. 641 00:31:20,312 --> 00:31:21,879 Well, it's got to end somewhere, why not Pluto? 642 00:31:21,947 --> 00:31:23,814 Yeah, I mean maybe, but maybe not. 643 00:31:25,184 --> 00:31:27,684 TYSON: Despite what felt like impossible odds, 644 00:31:27,753 --> 00:31:31,722 David teamed up with Jane Luu, then a graduate student, 645 00:31:31,790 --> 00:31:34,091 and they started a search that would take a lot longer 646 00:31:34,159 --> 00:31:36,226 than either one of them expected. 647 00:31:36,295 --> 00:31:37,728 LUU: Why did it take so long? 648 00:31:37,796 --> 00:31:40,864 Um, it was a matter of technology catching up 649 00:31:40,933 --> 00:31:41,965 with the problem. 650 00:31:43,569 --> 00:31:44,835 TYSON: il's to see distant stars 651 00:31:44,904 --> 00:31:46,904 because they radiate their own light, 652 00:31:46,972 --> 00:31:49,840 other celestial bodies are much harder to see. 653 00:31:49,909 --> 00:31:52,576 That's because light has to travel all the way from our sun 654 00:31:52,645 --> 00:31:55,579 to the object, reflect off its surface, 655 00:31:55,648 --> 00:31:58,682 and then make the long journey back to Earth. 656 00:31:58,751 --> 00:32:01,618 By that time it's barely visible. 657 00:32:01,687 --> 00:32:05,222 David and Jane hoped that advances in digital detectors, 658 00:32:05,291 --> 00:32:07,591 now standard in today's cameras, 659 00:32:07,660 --> 00:32:10,427 would help them see a whole lot more. 660 00:32:10,496 --> 00:32:13,830 That is, if there was anything out there to discover. 661 00:32:15,301 --> 00:32:19,002 In 1992, after searching for five years, 662 00:32:19,071 --> 00:32:21,305 they finally found something. 663 00:32:21,373 --> 00:32:23,106 JEWITT: Here is the set 664 00:32:23,175 --> 00:32:26,043 of discovery images for the first object. 665 00:32:26,111 --> 00:32:28,011 Obviously it's the thing with the circle around it. 666 00:32:28,080 --> 00:32:30,847 It didn't have a circle around it when we discovered it, 667 00:32:30,916 --> 00:32:32,449 but it does now. 668 00:32:32,518 --> 00:32:33,951 So you can see this object drifting 669 00:32:34,019 --> 00:32:35,852 from this picture to this one to this one. 670 00:32:35,921 --> 00:32:37,220 It's drifting slowly to the left. 671 00:32:37,289 --> 00:32:39,890 Whereas most of the other objects 672 00:32:39,959 --> 00:32:42,292 are fixed, stationary bodies in the background. 673 00:32:42,361 --> 00:32:45,762 TYSON: When they found several more of these slowly moving objects, 674 00:32:45,831 --> 00:32:51,301 David and Jane could finally declare that Pluto is not alone. 675 00:32:51,370 --> 00:32:57,507 It's part of a region of the solar system never before seen. 676 00:32:57,576 --> 00:33:00,444 David named it the Kuiper Belt after the astronomer 677 00:33:00,512 --> 00:33:04,281 who proposed its existence in the 1950s. 678 00:33:04,350 --> 00:33:05,749 Billions of miles wide, 679 00:33:05,818 --> 00:33:08,485 the Kuiper Belt is chock-full of icy objects 680 00:33:08,554 --> 00:33:11,655 in wide orbits around the distant sun. 681 00:33:11,724 --> 00:33:14,925 They're the leftovers from the solar system's formation. 682 00:33:16,362 --> 00:33:19,296 We theorize that more than four billion years ago, 683 00:33:19,365 --> 00:33:22,733 our solar system consisted of bits and pieces of debris 684 00:33:22,801 --> 00:33:26,837 colliding and sticking togetr into larger and larger chunks. 685 00:33:26,905 --> 00:33:29,006 Eventually these chunks got big enough 686 00:33:29,074 --> 00:33:32,409 for gravity to pull them into a nice round shape, 687 00:33:32,478 --> 00:33:34,011 forming planets. 688 00:33:34,079 --> 00:33:36,113 And as the planets got larger and larger, 689 00:33:36,181 --> 00:33:38,849 their gravity vacuumed up nearly all the objects 690 00:33:38,917 --> 00:33:40,951 in their path. 691 00:33:41,020 --> 00:33:42,252 But in the end 692 00:33:42,321 --> 00:33:44,888 there were still lots of bits and pieces leftover. 693 00:33:44,957 --> 00:33:46,356 And they got flung out 694 00:33:46,425 --> 00:33:48,658 to the far reaches of the solar system, 695 00:33:48,727 --> 00:33:51,028 where they plunged into a deep freeze. 696 00:33:51,096 --> 00:33:53,530 The discovery of this far-out region 697 00:33:53,599 --> 00:33:56,967 of the solar system made many of us stop and think: 698 00:33:57,036 --> 00:33:59,636 Is Pluto really a full-blooded planet 699 00:33:59,705 --> 00:34:02,906 or just another Kuiper Belt leftover? 700 00:34:02,975 --> 00:34:05,909 It didn't make any sense anymore to think of it as a planet, 701 00:34:05,978 --> 00:34:07,611 because it fits so well 702 00:34:07,679 --> 00:34:10,881 with this new population of Kuiper Belt Objects. 703 00:34:10,949 --> 00:34:12,182 MARSDEN: We all considered 704 00:34:12,251 --> 00:34:13,950 Pluto was strange at that time, 705 00:34:14,019 --> 00:34:16,820 but we didn't know how to resolve this. 706 00:34:16,889 --> 00:34:19,589 TYSON: And frankly, many of my colleagues weren't ready 707 00:34:19,658 --> 00:34:23,126 to mess with America's favorite planet. 708 00:34:23,195 --> 00:34:25,595 We all knew Pluto was an icy object 709 00:34:25,664 --> 00:34:27,831 just like everything else in the Kuiper Belt, 710 00:34:27,900 --> 00:34:31,568 but it was still the largest one in the neighborhood. 711 00:34:31,637 --> 00:34:34,571 That is, until my other dinner companion, Mike Brown, 712 00:34:34,640 --> 00:34:36,139 came into the picture. 713 00:34:36,208 --> 00:34:39,810 I had just finished my Ph.D. and I was looking for something new 714 00:34:39,878 --> 00:34:42,679 to move into and this seemed like the most obvious thing 715 00:34:42,748 --> 00:34:44,114 that anyone could start working on. 716 00:34:44,183 --> 00:34:47,217 This was an entirely new area of the solar system to go study. 717 00:34:47,286 --> 00:34:49,119 So it was very exciting. 718 00:34:49,188 --> 00:34:52,122 TYSON: Mike set his sights on doing something really big, 719 00:34:52,191 --> 00:34:55,592 finding a Kuiper Belt Object larger than Pluto. 720 00:34:55,661 --> 00:34:56,726 BROWN: I was determined 721 00:34:56,795 --> 00:34:58,728 that there still must be something out there. 722 00:34:58,797 --> 00:35:00,864 I had caught the bug of finding it. 723 00:35:00,933 --> 00:35:03,166 TYSON: At the Palomar Observatory in California, 724 00:35:03,235 --> 00:35:06,636 Mike had access to the largest digital camera on Earth. 725 00:35:06,705 --> 00:35:09,473 The images were uploaded to Mike's computer, 726 00:35:09,541 --> 00:35:11,441 where he analyzed them every morning. 727 00:35:11,510 --> 00:35:16,613 With technology on his side, the discoveries just kept on coming. 728 00:35:16,682 --> 00:35:18,849 BROWN: We found Quaoar, which is an object 729 00:35:18,917 --> 00:35:21,351 out in the Kuiper Belt that's about half the size of Pluto. 730 00:35:21,420 --> 00:35:22,786 The next year we found something 731 00:35:22,855 --> 00:35:24,654 about three-quarters the size of Pluto 732 00:35:24,723 --> 00:35:27,624 and the following year we found this thing, 733 00:35:27,693 --> 00:35:32,562 and it was so bright and also moving so slowly-- 734 00:35:32,631 --> 00:35:35,298 moving so slowly because it was so far away. 735 00:35:35,367 --> 00:35:37,701 I looked at it and I thought, this can't be right. 736 00:35:37,769 --> 00:35:39,803 If it's that bright and moving that slowly, 737 00:35:39,872 --> 00:35:41,671 it's the furthest thing we've ever found 738 00:35:41,740 --> 00:35:44,007 and it's the biggest thing we've ever found. 739 00:35:44,076 --> 00:35:46,376 It must be quite big, certainly bigger than Pluto, 740 00:35:46,445 --> 00:35:48,211 and that's crazy. 741 00:35:48,280 --> 00:35:50,680 TYSON: But it wasn't crazy. 742 00:35:50,749 --> 00:35:54,684 BROWN: On the day that we publicly announced the discovery, 743 00:35:54,753 --> 00:35:58,755 I had to make a decision what we were going to call it. 744 00:35:58,824 --> 00:36:01,625 Is it a planet? Is it not a planet? 745 00:36:01,693 --> 00:36:03,527 Is it the tenth planet? 746 00:36:03,595 --> 00:36:05,762 Finally I had to say, "Okay, it's the tenth planet." 747 00:36:05,831 --> 00:36:08,198 And I will tell you when everybody kept on calling me, 748 00:36:08,267 --> 00:36:10,667 congratulating me for discovering the tenth planet, 749 00:36:10,736 --> 00:36:12,169 I felt fraudulent the entire day. 750 00:36:12,237 --> 00:36:13,670 Why? 751 00:36:13,739 --> 00:36:15,705 William Herschel pointed his telescope 752 00:36:15,774 --> 00:36:19,476 in the sky and found Uranus-- Uranus. 753 00:36:19,545 --> 00:36:22,445 Uranus is a major part of the solar system. 754 00:36:22,514 --> 00:36:23,914 And he found it. 755 00:36:23,982 --> 00:36:26,183 That is a pretty big deal. 756 00:36:26,251 --> 00:36:29,486 I discovered a little ice ball out on the fringe 757 00:36:29,555 --> 00:36:31,254 and it just didn't seem 758 00:36:31,323 --> 00:36:33,924 like the same magnitude of a discovery. 759 00:36:33,992 --> 00:36:35,392 And I had been struggling with this for years. 760 00:36:35,460 --> 00:36:36,459 Like, what do you do 761 00:36:36,528 --> 00:36:38,228 when you finally find one bigger than Pluto? 762 00:36:38,297 --> 00:36:39,396 I did not believe 763 00:36:39,464 --> 00:36:44,100 that astronomers had the guts 764 00:36:44,169 --> 00:36:45,435 to ever demote Pluto, 765 00:36:45,504 --> 00:36:47,337 because it's just too publicly painful. 766 00:36:48,907 --> 00:36:51,341 TYSON: And if tiny Pluto was a planet, 767 00:36:51,410 --> 00:36:54,477 shouldn't Mike's discovery be one too? 768 00:36:54,546 --> 00:36:57,847 So he forged ahead, ultimately selecting a clever name 769 00:36:57,916 --> 00:37:00,584 for his discovery: 770 00:37:00,652 --> 00:37:05,722 Eris, the Greek goddess of discord and strife. 771 00:37:05,791 --> 00:37:08,825 Eris instilled jealousy and envy among men, 772 00:37:08,894 --> 00:37:10,894 driving them to battle. 773 00:37:10,963 --> 00:37:14,164 Mike's choice perfectly captured the destabilizing effect 774 00:37:14,233 --> 00:37:16,600 Eris was destined to have on Pluto, 775 00:37:16,668 --> 00:37:18,001 although he couldn't have guessed 776 00:37:18,070 --> 00:37:20,870 what was about to happen next. 777 00:37:20,939 --> 00:37:22,439 For the past century, 778 00:37:22,507 --> 00:37:25,475 the IAU, the International Astronomical Union, 779 00:37:25,544 --> 00:37:28,678 has been in charge of naming celestial objects. 780 00:37:28,747 --> 00:37:31,281 But it couldn't approve the name of Mike's discovery 781 00:37:31,350 --> 00:37:33,617 without knowing if it was a Kuiper Belt Object 782 00:37:33,685 --> 00:37:35,952 or the tenth planet. 783 00:37:36,021 --> 00:37:37,587 This posed a problem 784 00:37:37,656 --> 00:37:40,790 because the word "planet" had not been formally defined 785 00:37:40,859 --> 00:37:42,926 since ancient Greece. 786 00:37:42,995 --> 00:37:45,462 Clearly our knowledge of the solar system has expanded 787 00:37:45,530 --> 00:37:46,930 since then. 788 00:37:46,999 --> 00:37:48,365 So committees were assembled 789 00:37:48,433 --> 00:37:50,533 to come up with a new definition, 790 00:37:50,602 --> 00:37:53,570 the last of which was headed by my friend from Harvard, 791 00:37:53,639 --> 00:37:55,005 Owen Gingerich. 792 00:37:55,073 --> 00:37:59,109 So what we proposed was that planets should be round 793 00:37:59,177 --> 00:38:02,145 and going around the sun. 794 00:38:02,214 --> 00:38:03,947 So, massive enough for the gravity to shape them 795 00:38:04,016 --> 00:38:05,115 into a nice round form. 796 00:38:05,183 --> 00:38:06,650 That's right. 797 00:38:06,718 --> 00:38:10,754 TYSON: Under this definition, Pluto would remain a planet. 798 00:38:10,822 --> 00:38:14,024 Mike Brown's discovery would be one too. 799 00:38:14,092 --> 00:38:16,893 And as new discoveries are made in the outer solar system, 800 00:38:16,962 --> 00:38:19,195 the planet count could go up. 801 00:38:19,264 --> 00:38:20,297 GINGERICH: We realized 802 00:38:20,365 --> 00:38:23,833 that doing this would bring scores of planets. 803 00:38:23,902 --> 00:38:25,769 Into the accounting of planets in the solar system. 804 00:38:25,837 --> 00:38:26,936 That's right. 805 00:38:30,208 --> 00:38:32,275 TYSON: But when the definition was proposed in Prague 806 00:38:32,344 --> 00:38:34,711 at the 2006 IAU conference, 807 00:38:34,780 --> 00:38:39,482 many scientists were dead set against it. 808 00:38:39,551 --> 00:38:43,453 A rebellion was brewing and things were getting ugly. 809 00:38:43,522 --> 00:38:44,788 TYSON: Just to clarify, 810 00:38:44,856 --> 00:38:49,326 your original suggestion got overturned within days. 811 00:38:49,394 --> 00:38:54,264 GINGERICH: Our recommendations were rather pushed to the side 812 00:38:54,333 --> 00:38:59,002 and a new kind of definition came about 813 00:38:59,071 --> 00:39:03,807 in the final voting at the union meeting. 814 00:39:03,875 --> 00:39:07,844 TYSON: A new definition that included the following line: 815 00:39:07,913 --> 00:39:11,514 "A planet must clear the neighborhood around its orbit." 816 00:39:13,719 --> 00:39:16,252 Pluto travels in a crowded neighborhood 817 00:39:16,321 --> 00:39:19,255 littered with thousands of Kuiper Belt Objects. 818 00:39:19,324 --> 00:39:23,893 It's simply not massive enough to clear them out of the way. 819 00:39:23,962 --> 00:39:26,463 BROWN: In the definition that the IAU came up with, 820 00:39:26,531 --> 00:39:29,733 eight major things which dominate the solar system 821 00:39:29,801 --> 00:39:30,734 are planets. 822 00:39:30,802 --> 00:39:32,235 They're all big. 823 00:39:32,304 --> 00:39:35,305 They go in circular orbits in one disk around the sun, 824 00:39:35,374 --> 00:39:37,807 and everything else is on these other crazy orbits 825 00:39:37,876 --> 00:39:39,809 much smaller; those are not planets. 826 00:39:39,878 --> 00:39:43,513 That concept is a rock-solid concept. 827 00:39:45,484 --> 00:39:47,917 TYSON: And when this new definition went to a vote 828 00:39:47,986 --> 00:39:51,121 of the members present, it was a slam-dunk. 829 00:39:51,189 --> 00:39:53,156 (trumpet playing taps) 830 00:39:53,225 --> 00:39:57,794 After 76 years, Pluto was no longer a planet. 831 00:40:00,432 --> 00:40:01,765 COLBERT: I'm sorry, 832 00:40:01,833 --> 00:40:05,568 I thought planets might be one of the constants in life. 833 00:40:05,637 --> 00:40:10,306 But scientists just love change more than anything else. 834 00:40:10,375 --> 00:40:12,509 Well, I'm sorry, that's not change I can believe in. 835 00:40:12,577 --> 00:40:16,146 The whole underpinnings of what we understand as science. 836 00:40:16,214 --> 00:40:18,882 Is gravity real or do we just have sticky stuff on our shoes? 837 00:40:18,950 --> 00:40:20,383 I mean, the whole thing. 838 00:40:22,888 --> 00:40:26,723 (trumpet continues playing taps) 839 00:40:26,792 --> 00:40:28,091 I couldn't believe it. 840 00:40:28,160 --> 00:40:30,126 I couldn't believe that that was the vote that happened, 841 00:40:30,195 --> 00:40:31,361 but when that vote happened, 842 00:40:31,430 --> 00:40:33,229 I knew exactly what was going to happen next. 843 00:40:33,298 --> 00:40:35,865 Supporters of Pluto are speaking out, 844 00:40:35,934 --> 00:40:38,168 trying to help it regain planet status. 845 00:40:38,236 --> 00:40:42,372 MAN: ¶ Rock on, Pluto, you'll always be a planet to me... ¶ 846 00:40:42,441 --> 00:40:47,210 TYSON: Pluto lovers of America did not take the IAU decision lightly. 847 00:40:47,279 --> 00:40:50,246 At New Mexico State, where Clyde Tombaugh had taught, 848 00:40:50,315 --> 00:40:52,282 students took to the streets. 849 00:40:52,350 --> 00:40:55,819 Go, Pluto! Pluto forever! 850 00:40:55,887 --> 00:40:57,620 TYSON: The New Mexico legislature declared 851 00:40:57,689 --> 00:41:00,590 Pluto was still a planet within state borders. 852 00:41:00,659 --> 00:41:02,859 MAN: ¶ No matter what it says on the chart ¶ 853 00:41:02,928 --> 00:41:06,229 ¶ You'll always be a planet in my heart... ¶ 854 00:41:06,298 --> 00:41:08,164 TYSON: And Illinois soon followed, 855 00:41:08,233 --> 00:41:09,899 spurred on by efforts led 856 00:41:09,968 --> 00:41:11,734 by the concerned citizens of Streator. 857 00:41:11,803 --> 00:41:13,870 MAN: ¶ Rock on, Pluto! ¶ 858 00:41:13,939 --> 00:41:18,308 So I've got in my hand this... legislation 859 00:41:18,376 --> 00:41:19,776 passed by the 96th general assembly 860 00:41:19,845 --> 00:41:21,611 here in the State of Illinois. 861 00:41:21,680 --> 00:41:22,779 Yes. 862 00:41:22,848 --> 00:41:24,013 No one's got a problem 863 00:41:24,082 --> 00:41:26,950 with declaring March 13th Pluto Day, 864 00:41:27,018 --> 00:41:29,018 the anniversary of Clyde Tombaugh announcing 865 00:41:29,087 --> 00:41:29,986 the discovery. 866 00:41:30,055 --> 00:41:31,154 Who could argue that? 867 00:41:31,223 --> 00:41:32,989 It's this part of the resolution that says 868 00:41:33,058 --> 00:41:34,324 when Pluto passes overhead, 869 00:41:34,392 --> 00:41:37,060 (chuckling): overhead of Illinois's night skies, 870 00:41:37,128 --> 00:41:39,896 that it be re-established with full planetary status. 871 00:41:39,965 --> 00:41:41,865 That's audacious. 872 00:41:41,933 --> 00:41:44,701 That's saying, "Forget the scientists, 873 00:41:44,769 --> 00:41:45,502 this is Illinois." 874 00:41:45,570 --> 00:41:46,569 Yeah, this is Streator. 875 00:41:46,638 --> 00:41:48,104 And don't mess with Streator. 876 00:41:48,173 --> 00:41:51,074 And don't mess with us, yeah, there you go. 877 00:41:51,142 --> 00:41:55,211 TYSON: Back at the barbershop, the guys made it clear where they stand. 878 00:41:55,280 --> 00:41:56,379 BARBER: I still believe 879 00:41:56,448 --> 00:41:58,047 it's a planet. 880 00:41:58,116 --> 00:41:59,282 They can't make me think any different. 881 00:41:59,351 --> 00:42:01,651 (laughing) 882 00:42:01,720 --> 00:42:03,720 TYSON: But next door at the Country Cupboard, 883 00:42:03,788 --> 00:42:05,955 locals questioned the decision. 884 00:42:06,024 --> 00:42:07,690 I was very disappointed. 885 00:42:07,759 --> 00:42:09,626 Disappointed in the result 886 00:42:09,694 --> 00:42:10,627 or how they got the result? 887 00:42:10,695 --> 00:42:11,928 Both. 888 00:42:11,997 --> 00:42:14,531 You can't change scientific fact or definition 889 00:42:14,599 --> 00:42:15,665 with a hand count. 890 00:42:15,734 --> 00:42:17,233 You're a scientist. 891 00:42:17,302 --> 00:42:22,071 Since when do you take a vote on... on scientific fact? 892 00:42:22,140 --> 00:42:23,473 TYSON: But it wasn't just hometown folks 893 00:42:23,542 --> 00:42:25,909 who disagreed with the decision. 894 00:42:25,977 --> 00:42:29,078 Just a few days after the vote, this petition, 895 00:42:29,147 --> 00:42:32,715 signed by hundreds of planetary scientists, hit the Internet. 896 00:42:32,784 --> 00:42:37,854 It says: "The undersigned do not accept the IAU definition, 897 00:42:37,923 --> 00:42:39,923 and they refuse to use it." 898 00:42:39,991 --> 00:42:42,859 Period. 899 00:42:42,928 --> 00:42:45,361 The last stop on my journey would be a visit 900 00:42:45,430 --> 00:42:49,198 with a planetary scientist who proudly signed that petition, 901 00:42:49,267 --> 00:42:53,369 one of the world's leading experts on Pluto, Alan Stern. 902 00:42:53,438 --> 00:42:55,872 He's been mad ever since we opened our new exhibit 903 00:42:55,941 --> 00:42:57,073 at the planetarium. 904 00:42:57,142 --> 00:42:59,943 And he sure isn't pleased with the IAU. 905 00:43:13,291 --> 00:43:14,357 You're late. 906 00:43:21,433 --> 00:43:23,166 Ready for this? 907 00:43:23,234 --> 00:43:24,200 Ready as ever. 908 00:43:26,037 --> 00:43:28,137 TYSON: I can't wait to hear what Alan's got to say 909 00:43:28,206 --> 00:43:29,939 about Pluto's demotion. 910 00:43:30,008 --> 00:43:32,141 STERN: I think that the IAU has confused people, 911 00:43:32,210 --> 00:43:35,311 because their definition produces such illogical results. 912 00:43:37,048 --> 00:43:40,249 What I really like is what I call the Star Trek test. 913 00:43:40,318 --> 00:43:44,554 When Kirk and Spock show up orbiting an object, 914 00:43:44,623 --> 00:43:47,957 just by looking at the picture of it, they know it's a planet. 915 00:43:48,026 --> 00:43:50,593 In an IAU world, Spock would have to come back and say, 916 00:43:50,662 --> 00:43:52,562 "Captain, let me survey the entire solar system, 917 00:43:52,631 --> 00:43:54,197 "determine whatever objects are there. 918 00:43:54,265 --> 00:43:55,531 "I'll integrate the orbits overnight. 919 00:43:55,600 --> 00:43:57,233 I'll get back to you." 920 00:43:57,302 --> 00:43:58,301 It's not that hard. 921 00:43:58,370 --> 00:43:59,869 So you don't even care 922 00:43:59,938 --> 00:44:02,338 about whether a zone is cleared 923 00:44:02,407 --> 00:44:03,740 or some of these other parameters. 924 00:44:03,808 --> 00:44:05,375 No, that's all about location, 925 00:44:05,443 --> 00:44:07,076 and location is for realtors, not scientists. 926 00:44:07,145 --> 00:44:08,478 (laughing) 927 00:44:08,546 --> 00:44:10,046 I don't think it counts at all 928 00:44:10,115 --> 00:44:13,082 in terms of what it means to be a planet. 929 00:44:13,151 --> 00:44:15,652 TYSON: So then, what is Pluto? 930 00:44:15,720 --> 00:44:18,821 According to Alan, it's not just a Kuiper Belt Object. 931 00:44:18,890 --> 00:44:21,157 It's not a lonely oddball either, 932 00:44:21,226 --> 00:44:23,793 and it's definitely not demote-able. 933 00:44:23,862 --> 00:44:27,163 It's simply a new kind of planet, a dwarf planet, 934 00:44:27,232 --> 00:44:29,832 and it turns out there's lots of them. 935 00:44:29,901 --> 00:44:32,402 It looked like the solar system consisted 936 00:44:32,470 --> 00:44:35,738 of four terrestrial planets, four giant planets 937 00:44:35,807 --> 00:44:37,273 and misfit Pluto, 938 00:44:37,342 --> 00:44:39,242 but today, instead we see a solar system 939 00:44:39,310 --> 00:44:45,148 with four terrestrial planets, four freakishly giant planets 940 00:44:45,216 --> 00:44:48,451 and a whole cohort of Pluto-like objects 941 00:44:48,520 --> 00:44:50,687 which turn out to be the dominant class of planet 942 00:44:50,755 --> 00:44:52,155 in our solar system. 943 00:44:52,223 --> 00:44:54,657 These are typically rocky and icy objects. 944 00:44:54,726 --> 00:44:58,528 Many have atmospheres; many, possibly most, have moons. 945 00:44:58,596 --> 00:45:02,165 All the things we're used to in the planets we're familiar with 946 00:45:02,233 --> 00:45:03,633 but in miniature. 947 00:45:03,702 --> 00:45:06,135 I think a decent analogy is, 948 00:45:06,204 --> 00:45:08,237 when you see a Chihuahua, it's still a dog, 949 00:45:08,306 --> 00:45:10,373 because it has the characteristics 950 00:45:10,442 --> 00:45:12,442 of the canine species, 951 00:45:12,510 --> 00:45:14,677 just in miniature. 952 00:45:14,746 --> 00:45:17,080 TYSON: Why, then, are these pint-size planets 953 00:45:17,148 --> 00:45:19,315 so much smaller than the rest? 954 00:45:19,384 --> 00:45:21,350 The process of planetary formation 955 00:45:21,419 --> 00:45:24,087 is a bottoms-up process. 956 00:45:24,155 --> 00:45:27,590 Planets grow from small things to larger and larger things. 957 00:45:27,659 --> 00:45:29,592 Dwarf planets were arrested 958 00:45:29,661 --> 00:45:32,862 in the mid-stage of planetary growth. 959 00:45:32,931 --> 00:45:36,766 They are actually planetary embryos. 960 00:45:36,835 --> 00:45:39,635 Pluto and other dwarf planets would have grown much larger 961 00:45:39,704 --> 00:45:42,205 had there been more material around them. 962 00:45:42,273 --> 00:45:44,640 Why was there no more material for them? 963 00:45:44,709 --> 00:45:47,844 That's a great question, and we don't know the answer to it. 964 00:45:47,912 --> 00:45:49,779 TYSON: Many planetary scientists think 965 00:45:49,848 --> 00:45:51,514 that dwarf planets were actually born 966 00:45:51,583 --> 00:45:53,382 in another region of the solar system, 967 00:45:53,451 --> 00:45:57,420 among the gas giants, where the food supply was plentiful. 968 00:45:57,489 --> 00:45:59,489 But as the gas giants grew larger and larger 969 00:45:59,557 --> 00:46:01,858 and migrated to their current positions, 970 00:46:01,926 --> 00:46:04,627 the force of their gravity flung the tiny dwarfs outward 971 00:46:04,696 --> 00:46:07,997 to the Kuiper Belt, where they reside today. 972 00:46:08,066 --> 00:46:10,700 While there are thousands of objects in the Kuiper Belt, 973 00:46:10,769 --> 00:46:13,336 they're spread millions of miles apart, 974 00:46:13,404 --> 00:46:14,737 so far away from each other 975 00:46:14,806 --> 00:46:16,873 that the dwarfs no longer come in contact 976 00:46:16,941 --> 00:46:18,941 with the material they need to grow. 977 00:46:19,010 --> 00:46:21,611 To study those objects 978 00:46:21,679 --> 00:46:26,382 rather than objects that grew to much larger scales 979 00:46:26,451 --> 00:46:27,850 will give us a great window 980 00:46:27,919 --> 00:46:30,353 into the process of planetary formation. 981 00:46:30,421 --> 00:46:34,490 MISSION CONTROL: Three, two, one... 982 00:46:34,559 --> 00:46:37,059 We have ignition and lift-off. 983 00:46:37,128 --> 00:46:39,328 TYSON: Alan and his team hope to open that window 984 00:46:39,397 --> 00:46:42,899 when the New Horizons spacecraft, launched in 2006, 985 00:46:42,967 --> 00:46:46,135 becomes the first ever to arrive at Pluto, 986 00:46:46,204 --> 00:46:50,039 racing at a speed of 37,000 miles an hour. 987 00:46:50,108 --> 00:46:52,642 Travel time-- 9 1/2 years. 988 00:46:52,710 --> 00:46:56,078 Scheduled arrival-- 2015. 989 00:46:56,147 --> 00:46:57,847 So this is the place. 990 00:46:57,916 --> 00:47:00,616 This is Mission Control for New Horizons. Cool. 991 00:47:00,685 --> 00:47:03,386 STERN: Yeah, the flight control team is monitoring 992 00:47:03,454 --> 00:47:05,121 the data that's coming down, 993 00:47:05,190 --> 00:47:06,756 looking at the health of the spacecraft 994 00:47:06,825 --> 00:47:08,791 and sending instructions back up to basically choreograph 995 00:47:08,860 --> 00:47:10,226 everything that happens on the spacecraft. 996 00:47:10,295 --> 00:47:13,830 So how long do those instructions take to get there? 997 00:47:13,898 --> 00:47:16,465 Like suppose it says, "Quick, turn left!" 998 00:47:16,534 --> 00:47:17,800 Like, how long does that take? 999 00:47:17,869 --> 00:47:20,903 Well, right now it would take about two hours and 12 minutes 1000 00:47:20,972 --> 00:47:22,338 for the instruction to get up there 1001 00:47:22,407 --> 00:47:23,472 and then after it's executed, 1002 00:47:23,541 --> 00:47:25,842 two hours and 12 minutes more for us to find out 1003 00:47:25,910 --> 00:47:27,677 that's what happened. To complete the round trip. 1004 00:47:27,745 --> 00:47:29,145 By the time it gets to Pluto... 1005 00:47:29,214 --> 00:47:31,681 It's going to be 9 1/2 hours. Round trip. 1006 00:47:31,749 --> 00:47:34,116 Yeah. So you better know well in advance 1007 00:47:34,185 --> 00:47:35,451 what you're telling this thing to do. 1008 00:47:35,520 --> 00:47:37,253 We try to make sure we do that. 1009 00:47:37,322 --> 00:47:40,823 TYSON: New Horizons has seven scientific instruments, 1010 00:47:40,892 --> 00:47:43,492 which will study Pluto's atmospheric composition, 1011 00:47:43,561 --> 00:47:47,063 its surface features, its interior structure, 1012 00:47:47,131 --> 00:47:51,667 as well as its three moons: Charon, Nix and Hydra. 1013 00:47:51,736 --> 00:47:54,670 So it seems to me that New Horizons, with its experiments, 1014 00:47:54,739 --> 00:47:59,342 will transform this icy ball out there into a world. 1015 00:47:59,410 --> 00:48:01,477 It's true first-time exploration. 1016 00:48:01,546 --> 00:48:03,145 We've never been to a dwarf planet, 1017 00:48:03,214 --> 00:48:05,147 and I think it will be as revealing 1018 00:48:05,216 --> 00:48:06,649 as when we first went to Mars 1019 00:48:06,718 --> 00:48:08,951 and no one expected craters and river valleys. 1020 00:48:09,020 --> 00:48:11,921 All right, so you had enough room for seven scientific instruments, 1021 00:48:11,990 --> 00:48:13,923 but I heard, like, there's more stuff than that. 1022 00:48:13,992 --> 00:48:16,659 Well, we've got a few mementos. Uh-huh. 1023 00:48:16,728 --> 00:48:19,028 Perhaps the most sentimental and noteworthy 1024 00:48:19,097 --> 00:48:21,264 are some of Clyde Tombaugh's ashes. 1025 00:48:21,332 --> 00:48:22,798 His ashes. 1026 00:48:22,867 --> 00:48:25,801 His ashes-- it's on its way to the stars. 1027 00:48:29,908 --> 00:48:34,010 The man is on his way back to the very planet he discovered 1028 00:48:34,078 --> 00:48:35,544 and he's due to arrive there 1029 00:48:35,613 --> 00:48:37,146 in 2015... That's great. 1030 00:48:37,215 --> 00:48:38,514 and that just blows my mind. 1031 00:48:38,583 --> 00:48:41,284 I'd challenge anybody to put that on their résumé. 1032 00:48:46,224 --> 00:48:49,292 TYSON: Finally its time to head back home. 1033 00:48:49,360 --> 00:48:52,128 But my journey isn't quite over. 1034 00:48:52,196 --> 00:48:56,032 I have one more thing to do, a promise to keep. 1035 00:48:56,100 --> 00:48:58,234 When I met Annette Tombaugh, 1036 00:48:58,303 --> 00:49:00,469 she told me she had never seen our exhibit 1037 00:49:00,538 --> 00:49:03,205 and asked if she could see it with me. 1038 00:49:03,274 --> 00:49:05,374 Of course I agreed. 1039 00:49:05,443 --> 00:49:07,143 I was a little nervous 1040 00:49:07,211 --> 00:49:09,078 about inviting Annette to the Rose Center, 1041 00:49:09,147 --> 00:49:12,281 because this is kind of where the public awareness 1042 00:49:12,350 --> 00:49:14,183 of the problems with Pluto began. 1043 00:49:14,252 --> 00:49:16,018 I'm excited. 1044 00:49:16,087 --> 00:49:18,421 I'm really excited about seeing the exhibit. 1045 00:49:18,489 --> 00:49:20,489 Of course I am still going to look for Pluto. 1046 00:49:20,558 --> 00:49:22,858 I think what we did here is sensible. 1047 00:49:22,927 --> 00:49:25,061 So let's hope this works. 1048 00:49:25,129 --> 00:49:27,697 (knocking on glass door) (laughing) 1049 00:49:29,600 --> 00:49:31,100 Hello. Hi! 1050 00:49:31,169 --> 00:49:32,435 Welcome to New York. 1051 00:49:32,503 --> 00:49:34,270 It's good to see you. 1052 00:49:34,339 --> 00:49:35,404 Oh, my goodness. 1053 00:49:35,473 --> 00:49:38,541 Welcome to the belly of the beast. 1054 00:49:38,609 --> 00:49:41,777 TYSON: I showed Annette where we exhibit the planets. 1055 00:49:41,846 --> 00:49:47,750 Then I took her downstairs to show her where we put Pluto. 1056 00:49:47,819 --> 00:49:49,552 And so here we have it. 1057 00:49:53,224 --> 00:49:55,057 It's there. (laughing) 1058 00:49:55,126 --> 00:49:56,392 Okay. 1059 00:49:56,461 --> 00:49:59,161 I don't see anything wrong with this presentation at all. 1060 00:49:59,230 --> 00:50:01,364 (kissing) 1061 00:50:01,432 --> 00:50:02,832 (both laughing) 1062 00:50:02,900 --> 00:50:05,434 So, after ten years, I can rest peacefully at night. 1063 00:50:05,503 --> 00:50:07,103 You can rest. 1064 00:50:07,171 --> 00:50:09,038 I wish it were a little bigger... 1065 00:50:09,107 --> 00:50:11,440 (both laugh) 1066 00:50:11,509 --> 00:50:12,908 And a little higher? (laughs) 1067 00:50:14,746 --> 00:50:16,979 TYSON: So can I offer you my view? 1068 00:50:17,048 --> 00:50:21,517 Not that you ask, but I have a view that's been stereotyped 1069 00:50:21,586 --> 00:50:23,486 but actually misrepresents my position here. 1070 00:50:23,554 --> 00:50:25,688 When you look at the richness, 1071 00:50:25,757 --> 00:50:29,625 this tapestry of information we now have about the solar system, 1072 00:50:29,694 --> 00:50:32,194 what I would vote for is 1073 00:50:32,263 --> 00:50:37,433 we recognize the true diversity of stuff that orbits the sun 1074 00:50:37,502 --> 00:50:39,035 and invent a new lexicon 1075 00:50:39,103 --> 00:50:40,603 commensurate with what our new understanding 1076 00:50:40,671 --> 00:50:42,972 of the solar system is, because it's no longer 1077 00:50:43,041 --> 00:50:45,975 just lights moving in the night sky. 1078 00:50:46,044 --> 00:50:49,278 Especially since we've discovered more than 400 planets 1079 00:50:49,347 --> 00:50:51,080 outside our solar system. 1080 00:50:51,149 --> 00:50:53,516 Maybe the definition of "planet" should consider 1081 00:50:53,584 --> 00:50:55,551 the rest of the cosmos as well. 1082 00:50:58,022 --> 00:51:00,890 After all I had seen and learned on my journey, 1083 00:51:00,958 --> 00:51:02,458 we decided it only seemed right 1084 00:51:02,527 --> 00:51:06,195 to add to our treatment of Pluto here at the planetarium. 1085 00:51:06,264 --> 00:51:08,731 So we attached this plaque. 1086 00:51:08,800 --> 00:51:11,834 And it says: Where's Pluto? 1087 00:51:11,903 --> 00:51:15,538 Some astronomers regard Pluto as a Kuiper Belt Object, 1088 00:51:15,606 --> 00:51:19,909 some call it a planet, and others think of it as both. 1089 00:51:19,977 --> 00:51:23,679 This confusion arises because a consensus has yet to emerge 1090 00:51:23,748 --> 00:51:28,017 on the scientific definition of "planet." 1091 00:51:28,086 --> 00:51:29,952 So are we ever going to agree? 1092 00:51:30,021 --> 00:51:31,587 No, I don't think we are. 1093 00:51:31,656 --> 00:51:33,689 I don't think agreement is necessary. 1094 00:51:33,758 --> 00:51:35,858 Culture will take its course. 1095 00:51:35,927 --> 00:51:38,060 These two guys are the cantankerous ones. 1096 00:51:38,129 --> 00:51:40,429 (all talking at once) 1097 00:51:40,498 --> 00:51:42,498 NOVACEK: Science is an exciting area. 1098 00:51:42,567 --> 00:51:43,999 It's an area of change. 1099 00:51:44,068 --> 00:51:47,803 Science is always changing, and you have to go with the flow, 1100 00:51:47,872 --> 00:51:50,306 and sometimes that means changing names 1101 00:51:50,374 --> 00:51:53,609 and reclassifying things that are held sacred, like Pluto. 1102 00:51:55,179 --> 00:51:57,446 Tyson has to understand something. 1103 00:51:57,515 --> 00:52:00,349 We don't care what it really is. 1104 00:52:00,418 --> 00:52:02,118 We just want to call it Pluto. 1105 00:52:09,861 --> 00:52:12,228 An astounding variety of life-- 1106 00:52:12,296 --> 00:52:16,398 9,000 species of birds, 350,000 kinds of beetles, 1107 00:52:16,467 --> 00:52:19,001 28,000 types of fish. 1108 00:52:19,070 --> 00:52:22,905 Two million living species and counting. 1109 00:52:22,974 --> 00:52:25,774 Creatures that don't look anything at all like each other 1110 00:52:25,843 --> 00:52:26,909 are actually deeply connected. 1111 00:52:26,978 --> 00:52:30,579 How does evolution really work? 1112 00:52:30,648 --> 00:52:33,582 "What Darwin Never Knew," next time on NOVA. 1113 00:52:39,190 --> 00:52:41,257 On NOVA's "Pluto Files" Web site, 1114 00:52:41,325 --> 00:52:43,626 what's the best planet in the solar system? 1115 00:52:43,694 --> 00:52:46,829 Listen in as a range of opinionated astronomers argue 1116 00:52:46,898 --> 00:52:47,963 for their favorites. 1117 00:52:48,032 --> 00:52:49,732 Then vote for your own. 1118 00:52:49,800 --> 00:52:51,934 Find it at pbs.org. 1119 00:52:53,604 --> 00:52:56,305 Captioned by Media Access Group at WGBH access.wgbh.org 1120 00:53:09,954 --> 00:53:12,154 This NOVA program is available on DVD. 1121 00:53:12,223 --> 00:53:13,889 The companion book, 1122 00:53:13,958 --> 00:53:16,859 The Pluto Files, the Rise and Fall of America's Favorite Planet, 1123 00:53:16,928 --> 00:53:18,427 is also available. 1124 00:53:18,496 --> 00:53:18,427 To order, visit shopPBS.org, or call us at 1-800-PLAY-PBS.