Planet X

In arizona at the turn of this century

Astromathematician percival lowell

Was searching for what he called "planet x"

Because he knew deep in his soul

That an unseen gravitational presence

Meant a new planet spinning in the air

Joining the other eight already known

Circling our sun up there

Percival lowell died in 1916

His theory still only a theory

'til 1930, american clyde tombaugh

In his scientific query

Discovered planet x, 3 point 7

Billion miles from the sun

A smallish ball of frozen rock,

Methane and nitrogen

It joined mercury, venus, earth and mars, jupiter

Saturn, uranus and neptune

Our solar system's newest neighbor

Two-thirds the size of our moon

A tiny, barely visible speck

Cold! minus 440 below

Not exactly paradise

They named the planet pluto

That same year, 1930, walt disney

Debuted his own pluto as well

But a cartoon dog with the very same name

As the ceo of hell

Was not the normal disney style

Most thought he was riding the coattails

Of pluto-mania sweeping the land

(not unlike our love for whales)

For the next five decades mysterious pluto

Captivated our minds

As late as 1978 its own moon charon

Was seen for the very first time

But telescopes and satellites

And computer calculations

Now say pluto may not be a planet at all

Causing great consternation

(some scientists say). . .

It's a "trans-neptunian interloper"

Swept away by an unknown force

Or a remnant of a wayward comet

Somehow sucked off course

Others say it's an asteroid

In the sun's gravitational pull

But if you ask clyde tombaugh

He'll tell you it's all "bull"

"i get hundreds of letters from kids every year,"

He says, "it's pluto the planet they love

Not pluto the comet or pluto the asteroid

They wonder about above"

The international astronomical union's working group

For planetary system nomenclature

Agrees that pluto's a planet

Reinforcing tombaugh's view of nature

Norwegian kaare aksnes, professor at the

Theoretical astrophysics institute

Says pluto is still a planet

And an important one, to boot

But at the university of colorado

Astronomer larry esposito

Says if pluto were discovered today

It would not be a planet. end of discussion. finito

He says it was not spun off from solar matter

Like the other eight planets we know

By every scientific measure we have

Is it a planet? no!

And now twenty astronomy textbooks

Refer to pluto as less than a planet

I guess if pluto showed up at a planet convention

The bouncer at the door might ban it

It takes 247 earth years

For pluto to circle the sun

It's tiny and it's cold but of all heavenly bodies

It's clyde tombaugh's favorite one

He's 90 now and works every day

In las cruces, new mexico

Determined to maintain the planetary status

Of his beloved pluto

But how are we going to deal with it

If science comes up the proof

That pluto was never a planet

How do we handle this truth?

As the ph.d.'s all disagree

We don't know yet who's wrong or right

But wherever you are, whatever you are

Pluto, we know you're out there tonight

And in 2003 you're going to see

The nasa pluto express

Fly by and take pictures of your cool surface

To send to your web page address:

H t t p colon slash slash d o s x x dot

Colorado dot edu slash

Plutohome dot html

Your own web page?

You've made quite a splash

Though now st. christopher is looking down

Says, "pluto, i can relate

When i was demoted from sainthood

It didn't feel too great"

And scorpios look up in dismay

Pluto the planet rules their sign

Is reading their daily horoscope

Now a futile waste of time?

At the turn of this century

Astromathematician percival lowell

In his quest for "planet x"

Started this ball to roll

At the end of the 20th century

We think he may have been way off base

Now we look at the sky

And wonder what new surprises

Await us in outer space