The Hindu : Tamil Nadu / Chennai News : Planet or not, Pluto is an interesting celestial body

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Sunday, Sep 17, 2006
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Tamil Nadu

Tamil Nadu - Chennai

Planet or not, Pluto is an interesting celestial body

Meera Srinivasan

Show at Birla Planetarium inaugurated in March continues to feature it as one

CHENNAI: It is over a fortnight since Pluto officially lost its planet status, but the show at the B.M. Birla planetarium in Chennai continues to feature it as one of the planets of the solar system. Though the threat to Pluto's `planethood' emerged several years ago, scientists decided that the solar system could do without the planet at an assembly of the International Astronomical Union (IAU) held on August 24 at Prague. They cited the former planet's tiny size and highly eccentric orbit as reasons for the decision. The show at the planetarium capsules the entire solar system in a crisp and informative 40-minute programme.

The 34th planetarium programme titled `Wonderful planets and their stars,' inaugurated in March, extensively covers all the planets, with Pluto being featured as the ninth.

Each planet is dealt with in great detail and is compared to the Earth for better understanding. The audience, however, did not seem to take serious offence at the inclusion of Pluto. Pluto's features were spoken about in detail. The audio commentary also included information on NASA's Hubble Space Telescope that spotted two new moons orbiting Pluto.

Tamil Nadu Science and Technology Centre Executive Director P. Iyamperumal said that they continued to feature Pluto in the show as it was a celestial object with interesting features.

"We will revise the content for the show soon," he said.

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