The Pluto Files: The Rise and Fall of America's Favorite Planet

by Neil deGrasse Tyson

When the Rose Center for Earth and Space at the American Museum of Natural History reclassified Pluto as an icy comet, the New York Times proclaimed on page one, “Pluto Not a Planet? Only in New York.” Immediately, the public, professionals, and press were choosing sides over Pluto’s planethood. Pluto is entrenched in our cultural and emotional view of the cosmos, and Neil deGrasse Tyson, award-winning author and director of the Rose Center, is on a quest to discover why. He stood at the heart of the controversy over Pluto’s demotion, and consequently Plutophiles have freely shared their opinions with him, including endless hate mail from third-graders. With his inimitable wit, Tyson delivers a minihistory of planets, describes the oversized characters of the people who study them, and recounts how America's favorite planet was ousted from the cosmic hub.

• ISBN10: 0393337324
• ISBN13: 9780393337327
• Publish Date: 9 February 2010 (first published 1 January 2009)
• Publish Status: Inactive
• Out of Print: 2 September 2014
• Publish Country: US
• Imprint: WW Norton & Co
• Format: Paperback
• Pages: 208
• Language: English

Reviews

[inlibrisveritas]

The Pluto Files is a response to the whole argument and battle over what makes a planet a planet and where Pluto falls in that definition.

I found this book to be quite entertaining as much of it holds Tyson’s sort of tongue-in-cheek commentary style. It focuses mostly on the relationship between Pluto and the people, from it’s initial discovery to the demotion from planet-hood. It goes more into the social history of the planet as when this was published we didn’t have the plethora of info about Pluto that we do now. The main story regarding the demotion of Pluto was quite interesting to read about and to see how despite the fact that Pluto’s place in the solar system hasn’t changed that people still found it’s demotion as something wholly disrespectful. As humans we often place human qualities on objects and the planets are really no exception (I do it), but to see it in such a wide scale as with the Pluto debate is kind of cool and a little frustrating. I’m all for the redefinition of planets if it means we can streamline our understanding of it, though I do admit to being a little sad that I have to mentally remind myself not to include it anymore.

Some of the best moments in this are the letter Tyson receives from other people over the demotion, especially those from kids who took the demotion extremely personal. While this is a book on Pluto and it’s place in our solar system, this leans more towards social commentary.