How NASA PIs Should Not Interact With Taxpayers
Keith’s note: Few people ever get a chance to fly something they helped to design in space. Even fewer people get to be a NASA mission Principal investigator. These missions are paid for by NASA and NASA is paid for by taxpayers. Contractual fine print aside, when you have a position like this on a NASA mission, you represent the agency – especially when you talk to taxpayers about it. In this case a taxpayer paid the New Horizons mission several compliments. And how does the mission’s PI respond? He dumps on the positive things that the taxpayer says because he’s ultra-sensitive about the whole Pluto is/isn’t a planet thing. The proper thing to do would be to take the compliments when you get them and say thank you to those who paid for the party.
Pluto is a binary planet–it has a moon half its own size. "That's a science fiction planet right there. We don't have anything like that," says @AlanStern https://t.co/OWn0mUMlqD pic.twitter.com/oDd4h6IqSd
— Science Friday (@scifri) May 6, 2018
What the people who gripe about Pluto not being a planet anymore overlook is that it's *way* cooler to be the first of the interesting outer bodies than metely the last planet. Those distant objects are fascinating!
— Rich Ocheis, Stable Genius (@richocheis) May 6, 2018
No one cares about that dude. We care about the science. We want to properly classify planets.
— AlanStern (@AlanStern) May 6, 2018
Strange way for @NASA New Horizons principal Investigator to respond to taxpayer who just said that what @NASANewHorizons is doing is cool. Listen to what this person is saying @AlanStern Get over the planet classification thing. People already think your mission is cool. Dig it.
— NASA Watch (@NASAWatch) May 6, 2018
Not only that, but Stern undermines science in his obsession. He knows why the distinction between the planets and non-planets is important science, he wrote about it back in 2000. The language “clearing the neighbourhood” comes from his paper. He could still disagree with the IAU definition (I do) while promoting about the science behind it, increasing scientific awareness. Instead, he lies to people, undermining both science and people’s trust in science.
I do not think Stern is lying to anyone. He is entitled to his opinions. But the way he responded to this person is simply not what someone representing a NASA mission should be doing. He should be setting examples not dumping on people.
Stern repeatedly claims that the IAU wording “Cleared its neighbourhood” means that Earth or Jupiter don’t qualify for planethood because of asteroids. But the phrase comes from his own paper, where he described the clear difference between the eight planets vs Pluto and the other minor planets, based on their ability to clear their neighbourhood. It’s his concept. To repeatedly claim the opposite meaning for the words is not “opinion”, it’s deception.
Likewise, repeatedly claiming the sovereignty of “planetary science” over “astronomy”. He knows that the overwhelming majority of planetary scientists don’t want Pluto defined as a planet; I don’t think any agree with his preferred definition. Again, pretending to represent a broad consensus when he doesn’t, is simply deception.
He’s welcome to disagree with the IAU definition. But I refuse to respect his lies.
To be fair, you’re referring to something Dr. Stern wrote almost two decades ago. His current statements contradict that. But I’d be inclined to say he changed his mind over the course of all those years. Not that he’s practicing “deception.” At worse, you could say that he became PI of the New Horizons mission in the intervening years, and that may be related to why he changed his mind.
He’s not saying he changed his mind. He’s deliberately misrepresenting what the terminology means. Even though he knows what it means, because he created it.
People need to stop making excuses for his behaviour just because NH was (and is) a cool mission.
I’ve read Dr. Stern’s two books. The voice in these two books is one entirely lacking congruence with this Twitter comment.
“Chasing New Horizons”
“Pluto and Charon”
[And I wish more PIs would write first-person accounts].
Maybe he has a good editor.
Then maybe he needs a Twitter editor.
I always felt that the core issue is if you define a planet as something that orbits the Sun and has enough mass to be a sphere it would mean that Ceres and Vista were misclassified and their original classification as planets in the early 1800s was accurate. Really the Pluto debate was nothing but a rehash of the debate that took place in the early 19th Century over their status.
So if Pluto is allowed to be a planet, then Ceres and Vista would be too, after being misclassified since the early 19th Century, and so would be many more Kupier Belt objects. Which means you would have many more planets.
And this raises another issue. What is a Moon? Are the numerous asteroids Jupiter collected in really moons? Or should they be reclassified and the term restricted to objects that were created from the same debris cloud as the planet, or from an impact on the planet? Seems to me this would be an even more important distinction than planets and drawf planets.
But then classification has always had an emotional element. It took anthropology hundreds of years to decide there actually are no races of humans in the biological sense, our genetics have always been too mixed up.
Vesta isn’t in hydrostatic equilibrium. It probably was, and so it is nearly spherical, but there is at least one recent large impact that hasn’t slumped sufficiently.
Vesta is a good example of the uselessness of Stern’s preferred definition. (And the worthlessness of the IAU category “Dwarf Planet”.) The only reason we know that Vesta is no longer in HE is because we had a probe (Dawn) close enough to accurately map the surface. Same problem with your own suggestion about using place-of-formation to separate types of moons. How would that work in practice? OTOH, the whole point in using dynamical dominance as a definition of “planet” is that there are no edge cases. Nothing sits on the border of planet/sub-planet due to the nature of planetary formation.
Except that planetary formation is a theory, not an observable. That makes me uncomfortable with using it to define a planet (since theories can be wrong, and our definitions may look silly in a few decades.) I also worry about the other end of the spectrum. What’s a very large gas giant rather than a brown dwarf (or, as some people call it, a failed star.) Fusion, or the lack of it, is fine. But some people invoke formation from direct collapse of a nebula rather than in an circumstellar disk. That’s model and theory dependent, so I don’t really like it.
But the results are observable. There is a huge gap between the planets and non-planets. No other proposed classification scheme comes close to being so easy to observe and apply.
IMO, when nature itself sorts things into two distinct groups, we are stupid to ignore it.
Re: Brown dwarfs.
That’s an area where there’s no clear division between planet and non-planet, and so a method-of-formation scheme might work. AIUI, the two methods of formation leave a pretty distinct spectral signature. If so, the measurement doesn’t depend on the theory, just the observation of a difference, so again if nature points a big neon sign at a particular property, we should probably pay attention.
In that case the distiction between brown dwarf and planet can be made on the basis of spactral characteristics rather than the (unobservable) mechanism of origin.
I can only image that non-space people looking in on this must think “what a bunch of children.” This whole Pluto a planet/not a planet thing has gotten really old. It’s time to move on.
Its not that the issue itself is unimportant but rather the way that the professional scientists on both sides of the issue get so obsessed with it that it colors their public commentary.
They’re just passionate, Keith. In the same way you are passionate, and express yourself with for instance the stories you elect to run, these guys, too, feel strongly about what they do. And they feel that their vote counts more (well, it looks that way, anyway).
But berating your Average Citizen isn’t cool.
But at some point (like, say, after a decade of arguing), you move on. I could see if we were talking about an actual scientific issue such as proving some planetary process, but classification of an object does not rise to that level. That’s especially true given the alternative is not a clearly absolute solution, either. And, really, I get the strong feeling this isn’t about science, it’s about ego and somehow he sees Pluto not being a planet diminishes New Horizons and his career. It doesn’t.
What’s in a name? A rose by any other name would smell as sweet.
The simplest approach is to recognize that Pluto is indeed a dwarf planet (an increasingly important class of objects) but that, consistent with both grammar and logic, a dwarf planet is a planet. The problem (the statement that a dwarf planet isn’t a planet) was the result of a last minute resolution from the floor during the final stages of the Prague IAU meeting that defined dwarf planet. I was there for that.
But for decades we’ve called a whole class of non-planets “minor planets” and everyone was okay with it. Why is this an issue now?
Yes, in our solar system we have jovian planets, terrestrial planets, dwarf planets, and minor planets (aka asteroids). Exoplanets come in even greater variety.
Except that “minor planets” were not considered “planets”. And no-one was confused about it, not one wrote angry letters to the head of the IAU. So why is “dwarf planet” not being a “planet” so magically different?
There would be no point in writing an angry letter to the IAU. While the continued use of Minor Planet is permitted, the IAU would prefer the use of “small Solar System body” instead.
Perhaps if enough of us wrote, they would have a vote!
Just for clarity, I really do mean that people write angry letters to the head of the IAU. No-one complained about “minor planets” not being planets. No-one complained about Ceres not being a planet, or Eris or Senda, or Titan or the moon. But as soon as the Pluto thing happened, he started getting bags of hate-mail. (But only from English speakers, mostly from the US. No other countries cared.)
Fair enough! And I would agree that sending angry letters to the IAU is over-the-top and not useful. On the other hand, I would be OK with anyone sending temperate letters disputing certain points of the IAU classification scheme. These should be regarded as acceptable, even if not productive.
Interestingly, I have never liked the term minor planets (because they are not) and have avoided use of the term all my life. What is more, the IAU’s Minor Planet Center is charged also with collecting data on comets and natural satellites. Neither of these were minor planets under the pre-2006 IAU definition. While I agree that the MPC is an appropriate place for such work I simply wish it was called something else.
While a mouthful, Small Solar System Body is a much better term for a category of non-planets. They have chosen to include comets this time which is helpful as we have discovered certain edge cases between comets and asteroids. I applaud the IAU for this change.
And so it is with dwarf planet. I care not that Pluto, Sedna, and other bodies find themselves in this category. But I protest using an adjective and a noun to describe something that is not actually the noun. I realize this is only a matter of semantics. I only wish to respectfully submit my desire that these objects were called something else.
Suggestions?
How about “Small Solar System Bodies.”
There’s no scientific reason to have a separate Dwarf Planet category. It isn’t just the name, it’s the whole concept.
(That said, I’m not a fan of SSSB either. IMO, they should have broadened “asteroid” to cover icy sub-planets as well. “Comet” would then describe only the activity of an outgasing icy asteroid. Same effect as SSSB but with a better name.)
SSSB would work for me. After all, Ceres was referred to as an asteroid well after we were somewhat sure of its sphere-like properties. And I like your thoughts on broadening the asteroid category to include comets.
However, you may have stumbled on to an even better suggestion.
How about Subplanet?
Yes, yes, I know the letters P, L, A, N, E, T are in there. But it is a single word, a noun distinct from the word planet. It describes bodies that didn’t quite make the cut for planet status. Having the magic letters in there might quell some of the dissension seen. Then again, maybe not!
And of course, as with SSSBs, it would satisfy whiny amateur linguists such as myself. Cheers!
The people screaming about Pluto are not really bothered by the terminology, that’s just an excuse. Stern/et al will not give up just because the IAU change “dwarf planet” to “subplanet”.
However, I meant “subplanet” to cover everything below planet and above dust. Same as “minor planets”. Not just the objects covered by the “dwarf” definition.
Note that there is no official rule that “X is not a planet” except for the IAU resolution on Dwarf Planets. That clause (ungrammatical and unlogical) is the source of much of the problem. Absent that rule (which is generally ignored by scientists anyway), we would not be having these arguments.
PI’s, researchers in general, can be a prickly bunch. When you get a number of them in the same room in a tag up or TIM is can be really awkward, like a middle school dance. I remember one researcher snickering ever time they found a minor grammatical error in someone’s presentation. Maybe they should bring back smoking and alcohol.
Re: last sentence: I’m not sure about the former, but given some of the marathon reviews I’ve been in, I’ll take the latter.
Totally ancillary to Keith’s point, which is a sociological one, but what convinced me Pluto is not a planet was an excellent talk on the orbital parameters of trans-Neptunian objects. It’s really obvious it’s a member of the TNO orbital family.
Passion is fine when the topic is under discussion, but to bring it in from left field while on another topic? Yeah, my grandmother had a saying for that which she would spit out from between clinched teeth and a frown of biblical proportions. It typically started with “You petulant child!” and went down hill from there.