Spacey Halloween Fun at Kennedy Space Center

Two years ago, I had the privilege of attending the National Space Club's Celebrate Space dinner with two young ladies, Sarah and Kelly, as my dates. We dined under the space shuttle orbiter Atlantis, danced the night away with KSC director Bob Cabana, and walked barefoot around the Kennedy Space Center Visitor Complex grounds after the party had ended. Much fun was had!

Sarah, Kelly, Bob Cabana, and me - October 19, 2013

On Saturday, we three once again attended the NSC's Celebrate Space party. Only these year, it was Halloween themed! Costumes were optional, but I couldn't resist. The day I bought my ticket, I already knew what I would dress as. My belly bump is around, most celestial objects are round – perfect!

The now iconic Pluto heart surface feature photo was fresh on my mind. I ordered a print-out of that image on a large piece of fabric which I then pinned to a scarf to tie around my waist. On the day of the event, it took a lot of pins to smooth a flat Pluto image around my pregnant belly! My daughter Josephine transformed into the dwarf planet Pluto for the evening.

My torso was to be the New Horizons probe, basically a gold foiled box with a large antenna dish. My human analog consisted of a gold sequin top, a glittery gold foam antenna dish hat, and lots of glittery gold make-up. To set the scene in space, I ordered little gold star hair accessories and attached them to a black skirt.

Pluto & New Horizons - October 17, 2015

Throughout the evening, a few people recognized Pluto and loved it. Many more people asked me what I was, then loved it. A few people asked me if I was Glinda the Good Witch – not even close. Three people asked me if I was really pregnant. Yes, yes I am. Josephine's frequent kicking was a constant reminder that Pluto is alive and active.

Adorable Kelly dressed as a 1950s astronaut wife, one of the Mercury 7. Commander Sarah looked sleek in her futuristic spacesuit. Many others dressed in space-related or other costumes, and still others came in cocktail attire. Even Bob got in on the costume fun and danced the night away.

My shoes are not meant for dancing these days, but that didn't stop me from getting on the dance floor a few times. Astronaut wife Kelly, Pirate Bonnie, and I posed for a photo in front of Atlantis. My shoes came off by the end of the evening as the party winded down. Our plan to walk the grounds barefoot again was foiled by construction - next time! A good time was had by all. Kudos to the National Space Club for a fun event!

Bonnie, Kelly, and me - October 17, 2015

Why This Planetary Scientist Won't Sign the Petition to Declare Pluto a Planet

Graphic from the Declare Pluto a Planet petition

Last week, I was invited to sign a petition on Change.org asking the International Astronomical Union (IAU) to reclassify Pluto as a planet. As a planetary scientist, my opinion is that Pluto is a planet. I've previously written that I consider the IAU classification criteria for planets to be deeply flawed, as does every single planetary scientist I've ever spoken to about this issue. But I will not sign this petition.

Science is not a democracy. The opinion of the majority does not change the principles of the Universe. Pluto doesn't care whether we call it a planet or not, nor did its nature change when the IAU declared it not to be a planet. The Universe is entirely indifferent to what we think of it. The Universe is formed on objective truths that don't change with human language or opinion.

Our understanding of science changes all the time. It is both evidence-based and theory-based. We can gather evidence to form theories based on the evidence, or we form theories and gather evidence to prove or disprove them. Scientist make conclusions based on the evidence or the soundness of a theory. Scientists can disagree on conclusions because of differing interpretations or seemingly contradictory evidence. Scientists do not form conclusions based on popular public opinion.

I remember a story I was told during my first NASA internship when I was an undergraduate student studying astrophysics. I was studying gamma-ray bursts (GRBs) from scientists who had been studying this phenomena for years. At an early conference on the subject, the question was posed as to whether GRBs were galactic (originating close to us, within our galaxy) or cosmological (originating far from us, in the cosmos). The majority decided that because GRBs were so very energetic, they must be close to us, they must be galactic. Only a couple of years later, new data from a new space observatory added proof to the theory that GRBs were cosmic, not galactic. The Universe didn't care that the majority of scientists had decided incorrectly. The truth is what it is regardless.

It doesn't matter that the IAU in 2006 voted that Pluto is not a planet. It doesn't matter if they change their minds in 2015, five years from now, fifty years from now, or never. Pluto doesn't care. The Universe remains unchanged.

My biggest issue with the petition is that science is not determined by majority vote. Voting and public opinion is not part of the scientific method. If tomorrow, a study is published stating that the majority of people have voted that the Sun is a planet, their vote will not make it so. Petitions and meeting polls are fun and interesting, but not scientific.

If the Change.org petition had asked the IAU to reconsider the classification of Pluto or reconsider its definition of a planet, I would sign it. Such a request should ideally come from the IAU membership and not from the general public, however. The IAU membership is the deciding body at IAU meetings and a request to reopen the discussion should come from them.

As the petition is worded, “Declare Pluto a Planet,” I cannot get behind. Making a scientific declaration via an Internet petition of the general public is not thoughtful, accurate, or sound. I can appreciate the enthusiasm of the petition creator and backers. I can agree that Pluto should be classified as a planet. But I feel that I would be bending my scientific integrity to lend my name to such an initiative. I very much hope that if IAU leaders and membership come across the petition, they will take it in the spirit of a request for further discussion on the issue.

Godspeed, New Horizons! Hello Pluto! And Thank You, Alan Stern!

Credit unknown. I stole it shamelessly from Twitter.

Love is in the air! There's nothing quite like tuning into CNN to get my usual news fix and seeing friend and colleague Alan Stern talking about New Horizon's Pluto fly-by tomorrow. Way to go! (Alan and I were interviewed on CNN's little sister network HLN a few years back about planetary exploration, but CNN is the big leagues and way cooler.) The news media seem to especially love Pluto's newly imaged heart-shaped surface feature, and so do I. It's like Pluto knew that its controversial image needed a make-over and became adorable to us again. Kidding, of course.

It's impossible to talk about New Horizons without mentioning Alan. He is the mover and shaker, the champion, the frontman for the mission. He has a tremendous talent to start conversations and get us excited. When I met him five years ago, my immediate reaction was to ask him how he got to do such cool things! I was so impressed. He still is involved in many cool things, some of which I've had the privilege of participating in. I had no part in New Horizons, I just think it's awesome.

My experience with New Horizons began before I met Alan. I saw the Atlas V rocket launch during my last semester of undergraduate at Florida Institute of Technology in January 2006. We were allowed to gather on the roof of the new Physical Sciences Building to watch it together as a department. Surprisingly, it was the first rocket launch I viewed from campus. I don't have a photo of the launch. I didn't own a smartphone back then; I had a Motorola Razr flip phone (remember those?), so snapping photos was less convenient.

Not my photo. My Razr couldn't take this shot. - January 19, 2006

To be honest, New Horizons wasn't on my radar until I coincidentally ran into Alan in Washington, D.C. last July when I was in town for a conference and heard him give a talk at the Smithsonian Air & Space Museum. It was only then that I realized that closest approach to Pluto was only a year away! I also then realized that many of my former planetary science classmates and NASA interns had been snatched up as part of the science team, and I had fun catching up with them that evening. Small world in the planetary science community!

Since last July, I've been psyched to see what Pluto has in store for us. As any planetary scientist will tell you, Pluto is an interesting dwarf planet, no less worthy of study since the debate over its classification or perhaps even more worthy of study because of it. Science isn't a democracy and nature doesn't care what words we assign to phenomena. Pluto is just as fascinating and scientifically important to us now as it was when New Horizons was proposed.

Much has been written about how the International Astronomical Union's 2006 definition is bizarre and fundamentally flawed. I don't know a single scientist who uses that definition. As a trained planetary scientist and astrophysicist myself, I could never use a definition of a planet that can be disproven with Earth as an example. That definition was simply bad science that got a lot of public attention. Science is never decided by vote, only by logic and evidence. Science is never decided, actually, it is always in flux as we learn more about the world around us. New Horizons is giving us so much new information on the Pluto system.

I had hoped to join Alan in Maryland this week for the official fly-by celebrations. I was supposed to be in California this week, but alas, some things don't go according to plan. And so, I watch the internet as so many others are doing, hanging on to every new announcement. Tomorrow I'll join a local PlutoPalooza celebration and party with the rest of the Pluto-loving Space Coast. Godspeed, New Horizons! Hello Pluto! And thank you, Alan Stern!

Pluto and one of its moons, Charon - July 8, 2015