at an observatory I get to look through humongous gigantic telescopes My job isn’t all staying up night all and sleeping until noon although that is a nice perk My main duty is to teach people about outer space and share the latest discoveries made by astronomers around the world Each day I learn something new and then I get to share those cool facts with others And what I’ve noticed is that our ideas about space are always changing That’s what makes astronomy even more fun One of those changes has upset quite a lot of people You’ll find observatories with giant telescopes around the world McDonald Observatory United States Llano de Chajnantor Observatory Chile
Pluto’s no longer a planet You know it I know it and most of the astronomers around the world know it But there are some people mostly older people who cling to the notion that Pluto should still be a planet They remember the good old days when Pluto was a planet and there were nine planets in the solar system Habits are hard to break and adults fascination with Pluto as a planet is a challenge for us How can we help them move on and enter the 21st century Look let’s be honest You know way more about space than grown ups do The last time they studied astronomy was Royal Observatory Greenwich UK South African Astronomical Observatory South Africa 3
SUN Venus Mars Earth Mercury like 1,000 years ago You know back before phones and cars were invented Okay maybe not that far back During their school days they may have memorized this mnemonic device My Very Educated Mother Just Served Us Nine Pizzas This catchy saying helped them remember the order of the planets from the closest to the Sun to the farthest from the Sun The first letter of each word represented the first letter of a planet Mercury Venus Earth Mars Jupiter Saturn Uranus Neptune Pluto 4
Neptune Saturn Pluto Uranus Jupiter This is the order of planets in the solar system that your grown ups would have learned about in school Now Pizzas is gone Adults love pizzas This was probably the high point of their school life And to the average adult the names of the planets are the one thing they remember from childhood the one thing they know about the solar system It’s understandable that they want to cling to this But things will be okay And it’s not their fault that they are a little behind They’ve been busy doing other non astronomy things But I know it can be frustrating when you talk about space and all the amazing things you’re learning 5
