Doctor Curmudgeon: I Am What I Am

By Diane Batshaw Eisman, M.D. FAAP Doctor Eisman is in Family Practice in Aventura, Florida with her partner, Dr. Eugene Eisman, an internist/cardiologist

I decided to write about myself because social media continues to discuss what happened to me. I have been reclassified, and my current status begs for some clarification.
There is quite a diversity of opinion out there, and many feel that my status should not have changed.

My name is Pluto. I have long been known as the ninth planet in our solar system, but in 2006, the International Astronomical Union General Assembly reclassified me as a dwarf planet.
I am still a planet and I still orbit the sun. And, of course, I have enough mass to be gravitationally rounded.

There were eight planets until 1902 when an astronomer, Perceival Lowell, did research on the relationship between planetary orbits comets, and meteors. This research led him to suspect that a ninth planet existed.

But I was not discovered until 1930. Clyde Tombaugh, another astronomer, had access to an instrument called a blink comparator. Using the machine was quite involved.
The Blink Comparator is a viewing apparatus with two side by side photographic plates. You had to take pairs of photos several nights apart. The special viewer allowed you to quickly switch back and forth. It was the blinking that led the astronomer to note minute changes in position and brightness between the photos.
I have an ocean beneath my icy exterior.

I am small, about half the size of the United States.

And my orbit is a bit odd because it is elliptical and tilted. And there are times when I am closer to the sun than to Neptune (the eighth planet).
But please don’t visit me because my atmosphere is composed of methane, nitrogen and carbon monoxide, and the temperature on my surface is too cold to sustain any life, around -378 degrees Fahrenheit.

I do have mountains that are huge blocks of ice, and sometimes frozen gases like methane coat them.

But why was I declassified?

Well, the International Astronomical Union General Assembly added new criteria at their meeting in August, 2006. There were now three criteria to be a planet:

1. You have to orbit the sun.

2. You need to be mostly round.

3. You have to be a big influence on the orbital stability of other objects and debris around you.

I failed number 3. .My orbit overlapped a bunch of objects in the Kuiper Belt, which is an area of icy bodies beyond Neptune

There is still a lot of debate amongst astronomers over what happened to me. More than 300 planetary scientists signed a petition objecting to my classification as a dwarf planet.
Kevin Schindler, astronomer/historian who worked at the Lowell Observatory spoke in an interview on space.com. “There’s this perception that Pluto got dumped…It’s not a bad thing to have a definition of what a planet is, but it’s not really the best definition. It has problems. I think one of the issues fueling the controversy is, if scientists are confused about the definition, what’s the rest of the public supposed to do? How are we supposed to understand what a planet is if scientists can’t even agree on it?”

But I must confess that although my reclassification does not matter to me, I was quite flattered by Katie Holmes, the governor of Arizona. In March 2024, she signed HB2477 making me the official state planet of Arizona.
Thank you, Governor. You are most kind.

Dr. Curmudgeon suggests “Bitter Medicine”, Dr. Eugene Eisman’s story of his experiences–from the humorous to the intense—as a young army doctor serving in the Vietnam War.
Bitter Medicine by Eugene H. Eisman, M.D. –on Amazon

Doctor Curmudgeon® is Diane Batshaw Eisman, M.D., a physician-satirist. This column originally appeared on SERMO, the leading global social network for doctors.
SERMO www.sermo.com

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