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How I Killed Pluto And Why It Had It Coming
Mike Brown
Spiegel & Grau
December 2010
On Sale: December 7, 2010
248 pages ISBN: 0385531087 EAN: 9780385531085 Hardcover
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Non-Fiction
The solar system most of us grew up with included nine
planets, with Mercury closest to the sun and Pluto at the
outer edge. Then, in 2005, astronomer Mike Brown made the
discovery of a lifetime: a tenth planet, Eris, slightly
bigger than Pluto. But instead of its resulting in one more
planet being added to our solar system, Brown’s find ignited
a firestorm of controversy that riled the usually sedate
world of astronomy and launched him into the public eye. The
debate culminated in the demotion of Pluto from real planet
to the newly coined category of “dwarf” planet. Suddenly
Brown was receiving hate mail from schoolchildren and being
bombarded by TV reporters—all because of the discovery he
had spent years searching for and a lifetime dreaming
about. Filled with both humor and drama, How I
Killed Pluto and Why It Had It Coming is Mike Brown’s
engaging first-person account of the most tumultuous year in
modern astronomy—which he inadvertently caused. As it guides
readers through important scientific concepts and inspires
us to think more deeply about our place in the cosmos, it is
also an entertaining and enlightening personal story: While
Brown sought to expand our understanding of the vast nature
of space, his own life was changed in the most immediate,
human ways by love, birth, and death. A heartfelt and
personal perspective on the demotion of everyone’s favorite
farflung planet, How I Killed Pluto and Why It Had It
Coming is the book for anyone, young or old, who has
ever dreamed of exploring the universe—and who among us hasn’t?
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