Brown, Mike. How I Killed Pluto, And Why It Had It Coming.
A recent episode of the hit CBS comedy "The Big Bang Theory" included an appearance by astrophysicist Neil DeGrasse Tyson who put up with claims of "deplanetizing" Pluto. Although the International Astronomical Union (IAU) voted in August 2006 for demoting Pluto to "dwarf" status the act has become a topic of much recent debate. A two million member Facebook group has protested the ruling. The controversy started when astronomer Brown in seeking bodies beyond Pluto found an orbiting mass 27 times the size of that previous planet. Yet the IAU considered the newly found "Eris" to be too small and also designated it a "dwarf." Of all the fallout from this scientific skirmish the most positive was that Brown, whose father worked on the Apollo space program, solidified his position in the California Institute of Technology and started a family. Being a husband/father in the astronomical world provides a balance in this memoir regarding how the fervor over Pluto has affected many traditional views about the universe.
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