Book 1 Post 2

How I Killed Pluto

By Mike Brown

 

Overall, this book was a great read. I thoroughly enjoyed the story and the layout of how everything was explained. Instead of the story being told completely about his discovery methods and full concentration on the search for planets, Brown adds his family as an element of the story. While discovering large masses floating out in the Kuiper Belt, we also see the arrival of his child. Additionally, as the story progresses, and Brown goes through some challenges and backlash for his findings, he always explains the best moments he is having with his child. Yes, I did read this book for the actual reason of finding out the story behind Pluto however, I also found a story about a family that was just nice to read. The most interesting aspect of this story was in my opinion the drama ensuing from the findings.

 

The most exciting chapter I read in the book would have to be “Stealing the Show.” This chapter explained what happened during the discovery of K40506A. This was a large mass that was 5% larger than Pluto, which was a huge discovery because that should classify this mass as a planet. However, a man by the name of Ortiz had heard about the potential of this planet at a briefing prior to a conference and stole data on the location of this planet. After locating it with a telescope he released a statement saying how he had made this discovery. Instead of following the scientific guidelines of making the discovery and backing it up with more data and research, this man immediately released the statement. On top of that, Brown called him out for this, and Ortiz proceeded to turn the tables on Brown saying he was “hiding the planet.” Brown released a statement absolutely destroying Ortiz which led him to make no comments for years. I absolutely loved reading this chapter in the book.

 

I am very glad I ended up reading this book. Usually, I am not too fond of reading, but I actually enjoyed this book. To read about something that was such an important change in your childhood was really interesting. Growing up in a family working at NASA and being a young kid filled with dreams, hearing about the removal of a planet just did not make sense to me. Now I feel as if I can explain how this happened and why it makes sense. After being considered a dwarf planet like the others around it, it only made sense that either all of them were planets in the solar system or none of them were. Essentially, the decision came down to removing Pluto as a planet. This book helped to keep my interest in space and gave me new things to consider when looking into the sky. Who knows what else we will find up there?