When was pluto formally downgraded from planet to dwarf planet

Summary Essay

“Pass out the cigars! Pluto is a papa” 1
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By Michael D. Lemonick 3
 July 25, 2011 Time Magazine 4


http://www.time.com/health/article/0,8599,2084606,00.html 5
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Before reading the passage, please do the following: 8
 • Go to the file called “pre-reading activity “ and anwer the questions. For 9


this activity, there is no right or wrong answer. The activity is designed to 10
 get you to think about the topic, and to use information you may already 11
 have to help you understand the reading. 12


• When you have completed the “pre-reading” activity, you may return to 13
 this document to read the grammar note and the vocabulary explanations 14
 before you read the passage. 15


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 Please read the grammar note and the vocabulary or expressions information 18
 carefully before reading the passage. 19
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 21
 Grammar Note: In this article, you will find the author is discussing an activity that will take place in the future while also discussing concurrent activities happening now. There are multiple ways to talk about the FUTURE:

Structure Example will + verb I will travel. be going to + verb He is going to travel. the present form of a verb + a future time marker, such as tomorrow, next week, yet, etc.

She leaves tomorrow.

time clauses, such as when we arrive She leaves when we arrive. 22


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 Some expressions you may not immediately recognize

Expression or Vocabulary item Meaning It’s Granted: it will be given All but impossible: almost impossible Get bombarded: is hit frequently and hard Fields pitches: considers as a choice Shouting distance: nearby Tossing around ideas: considering the use of certain ideas Caused anguish: made to feel very bad

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READING 28
 Read the following article, thinking about the previous ideas, that is, what you 29
 already know about this topic, how the language may shift in time, and which 30
 expressions may be confusing for you: 31


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 “Pass out the cigars! Pluto is a papa” 33


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 By Michael D. Lemonick 35


July 25, 2011 Time Magazine 36
 http://www.time.com/health/article/0,8599,2084606,00.html 37


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 With all the attention places like Jupiter and Mars have been getting as NASA 39
 prepares to send two new probes their way, it's easy to forget that a spacecraft is 40
 currently heading toward the edge of the solar system at speeds exceeding 41
 50,000 m.p.h. (80,000 km/h), aimed straight at Pluto. Even at that blistering 42
 speed, the New Horizons probe, launched back in 2006 before Pluto was 43
 downgraded from a fully certified planet to a dwarf planet, won't arrive until 2015. 44
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 But mission scientists don't want to waste a moment when it finally gets there, so 46
 they've been scouting ahead with the Hubble Space Telescope to see if there's 47
 anything unusual to photograph or any hazards to avoid — like rings, which could 48
 damage or even destroy a probe that smashes through them at a high speed. 49
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 The image that popped up in Hubble's gallery on June 28 didn't show any rings 51
 — but it did show that Pluto has a moon nobody knew about. Temporarily known 52
 as P4 until it's granted a real name, it joins Charon, discovered by a U.S. Naval 53
 Observatory telescope in 1978; and Nix and Hydra, spotted by Hubble in 2005. 54
 There's a good reason P4 escaped notice until now: its diameter, somewhere 55
 between 8 and 21 miles (13 and 33 km), makes it all but impossible to see from 56
 Earth. "We always knew it was possible there were more moons out there," says 57
 Alan Stern of the Southwest Research Institute in Boulder, Colo., the principal 58
 investigator of the New Horizons mission and a co-discoverer of the new moon. 59
 "And lo and behold, there it was." 60
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 It almost wasn't, as far as the astronomers were concerned. Stern, along with 62
 planetary scientist Mark Showalter of the SETI Institute in Mountain View, Calif., 63
 put in a proposal about a year ago asking for some of Hubble's precious time to 64
 look for rings around Pluto. "It must have rings, at least from time to time," says 65
 Stern. The reason: Nix and Hydra, like pretty much every other object in the solar 66
 system, get bombarded with meteorites or bits of comet every so often. "I 67
 guarantee that when we get there," says Stern, "we'll see craters." Those impacts 68
 will throw particles of ice into space and those particles will form themselves into 69


rings. "The only question," says Stern, "is how long they last." The Hubble folks, 70
 though, turned the scientists down. So they appealed, and the second time 71
 around their project was approved. 72
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 Showalter and Stern are not done yet. Along with several colleagues, they have 74
 submitted a second proposal to the Hubble time-allocation committee, which 75
 fields hundreds of such pitches per year. Scientists whose requests are granted 76
 don't always have as much time as they'd like, but Showalter and Stern will take 77
 what they can get, since they wouldn't be at all surprised if there are still more 78
 Plutonian satellites to be found. That's because the four known moons were likely 79
 born when something huge smacked into Pluto ages ago. If that collision 80
 produced big debris chunks, it surely produced smaller, still undetected ones too. 81
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 There's not a lot of time to lose. Even though New Horizons won't get within 83
 shouting distance of Pluto for nearly four more years, the mission scientists have 84
 to lock in their sequences of observations well in advance. "We have to write that 85
 script, test it, make sure it's all worked out," says Stern, and that takes time. "If 86
 we start discovering things too late, we're not going to be able to adjust." 87
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 Even though New Horizons will be flashing past Pluto at a blinding speed, the 89
 total encounter will last for weeks. "Lots of people think we're going to go by on a 90
 Tuesday or something," says Stern. But while the probe's closest approach will 91
 indeed be a one-day event, occurring on July 14, 2015, to be precise, New 92
 Horizons will start getting better images than the Hubble — and thus the best 93
 ever taken of Pluto and its moons — starting 10 weeks before the flyby and 94
 lasting 10 weeks afterward. 95
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 By that time, tiny P4 should have a real name. "We're tossing around some 97
 ideas," says Showalter, "but the name has to come out of Greek mythology 98
 associated with Hades and the underworld." That's according to the International 99
 Astronomical Union (IAU), which formally approves the names of heavenly 100
 objects — and which has strict and sometimes arcane guidelines for what's 101
 permitted. Underworld myths are the rule for moons of Pluto; for moons of 102
 Uranus, it must be characters from the works of Shakespeare and Alexander 103
 Pope — specifically Pope's poem "The Rape of the Lock." That required 104
 Showalter to learn the verses well. "I'm the discoverer of two moons of Uranus," 105
 he says. "We named them Cupid and Mab." 106
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 The IAU is also responsible for the decision in 2006 to demote tiny Pluto, just 108
 one-half the size of Earth's moon, to the status of dwarf planet. That ruling 109
 caused anguish to schoolchildren around the world while making some scientists 110
 rejoice. Stern, an unabashed Pluto lover, is philosophical. He has no doubt that 111
 Pluto is indeed a planet no matter what the IAU says, but he's not considering 112
 trying to get the decision reversed. "We've moved past that," he says. "I believe 113
 that most planetary scientists know it's a planet, and we don't need the IAU to tell 114
 us it is." 115


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 Showalter, on the other hand, doesn't think it matters what you call Pluto. "I don't 117
 see dwarf planet as a demotion," he says. "Think of bonsai trees. The fact that 118
 they're so small is what makes them interesting. So if you don't like the term 119
 dwarf planet, just think of Pluto as a bonsai planet. 120
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End of reading passage. 123
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Now that you have read the passage, go to the file (in Blackboard) entitled “Comprehension Check Activity” and answer the questions. You may refer back to the article to answer the questions. The questions have points to allow you to see how well you have understood the reading.