Pluto is still a planet. I know everyone was so upset when Neil DeGrasse Tyson fought to "de-planetize" Pluto, but that's not what really happened. What really happened is that Pluto became special. Pluto became a dwarf planet - one of only two others (maybe). Of course, there are probably billions more dwarf planets, but Pluto gave us the deliberate ability to classify small planetary bodies as "not Earth-sized" and "not-gas giants." Instead of wandering around saying, "well, I guess we should call it a planet because it orbits the sun even though it's super small and different and doesn't really meet the criteria for a planet" we were able to definitively say: "Pluto is a dwarf planet."
It's like saying, "well, I guess we'll call you a hippie because you eat organic food and don't like war and ride bicycles, but your hair is too neat and your clothes are too carefully chosen," instead of "you are a hipster."
Pluto is in fact smaller than Eris and composed primarily of rock and ice. In fact, Pluto may host a hidden ocean. This means, if we run out of water because we humans are good at making bad decisions, we can mine Pluto. But then imagine the price of water! We'll be watching it like we watch the price of gas.
"8.57 a gallon! Good heavens!"
"Well that's what you get when you have to mine it from Pluto."
Pluto's atmosphere plays host to nitrogen, methane, and carbon monoxide. There may even be wind on the surface of Pluto.
In conclusion, just remember: Pluto is still a planet - just a dwarf planet.
If the universe exploded into existence, it probably looked something like a firework. It probably made a loud noise, too and left trails of sulfur smoke trailing through the young vacuum of space.
If the universe exploded, and there was no one there to hear it, did it make a noise?
Of course, maybe it was backwards. Maybe it didn't explode into the dark, maybe it exploded into light. Maybe everything was made of light originally, then a virus in the system caused an explosion of dark matter... which is now winning... or something. If that were the case, it probably looked more like this:
Either way, I'd say it probably looked very cool.
Instead of looking at the history of the U.S. (today is the 4th of July, after all), let's take a look at the history of the universe.
At second 0, it popped into existence, in some way or another.
At second 10^-43 seconds, it was really hot. So hot, in fact, that electromagnetism, gravitation, weak nuclear interaction, and strong nuclear interaction were unified. Like a really awesome (and useful) super hero.
Between 10^-43 seconds and 10^-36 seconds the universe began to expand and cool. As it cooled, electromagnetism, gravitation, weak nuclear interaction, and strong nuclear interaction began to separate.
Between 10^-36 and 10^-12 seconds, the four forces separated.
Then, supersymmetry broke, and quark-gluon plasma filled the universe.
By 1 second, the quark gluon plasma had cooled to the point that hadrons formed. Neutrons began to decouple and travel freely through space.
At 10 seconds, the temperature had fallen. It was cold, like the North Pole--so cold, that new lepton and anti-lepton pairs ceased to be born. The reigning race slowly began to fade.
Between 10 seconds and 380,000 years, photons took violent control, carefully and thoroughly usurping the dying reign of the leptons. Their 380,000 year minus 10 seconds reign was primarily characterized by their rowdy interactions with charged protons, elections, and nuclei.
There were a couple of important events during the reign of the protons. For starters, the temperature fell at a rapid rate between 3 and 20 minutes. This allowed for atomic nuclei to form--ultimately resulting in nuclear fusion. This is important because it is by nuclear fusion that all matter is created. We are stardust, you know.
At 70,000 years, cold, dark matter began to dominate the space that is now the universe.
Jump to 377,000 years. The density of the universe fell, and hydrogen and helium atoms began to form. As the universe cooled, elements began to recombine, and by the end, photons traveled freely and the universe had become transparent.
Then over millions and billions years, small structures formed. Stars and quasars formed. Plasma became the universe's reigning race. Millions of stars began to form, and pushed forward the process of turning lighter elements into heavier elements. Clusters of stars formed, then superclusters, solar systems, and galaxies. Planets, asteroids, and black holes littered the space between stars.
People and animals exist on at least one small planet, and probably more.
The universe is probably about 13.75 billion years old. It will die, although not anytime soon. Most predict a Big Freeze, although others suggest a Big Crunch, a Big Rip, or being cooked, sometime in the next twenty billion years from now (or 100 billion or 10^14 billion--take your pick).
Either way, if you happen to be there, your best bet is to wear layers.
Neil DeGrasse Tyson recently asked this question in a speech: how much would you pay for the universe? He was referring to the recent funding cut that NASA took. He states that if one penny of each tax dollar went to fund NASA, we would surpass our wildest space dreams in a matter of a few decades.
One day, this concept is going to be one of those things that we talk about nostalgically, that people use as writing prompts for historical fiction novels. Right now, we think like this:
Can you imagine living in a country where women don't have the right to vote?
Can you imagine living in a country run by slavery?
Can you imagine living in a country where drinking alcohol was banned?
Can you imagine living in a country with vast tracts of unexplored land?
Can you imagine life without cars, or televisions, or phones, or heaven forbid--electricity?
And 67 seven years from now...
...Can you imagine living in country that wouldn't fund space travel?
And I will be 89 years old, cranky and obnoxious, living in a nursing home that orbits the moon, being interviewed on HoloSkypeOrbital by a 3D replica of my great-nephew who wants to do project on the history of space flight.
"My mother remembers them walking on the moon!" I would screech. "My mother watched the Challenger explode on a black and white TV! They didn't have space travel for real until I was about 52, even though NASA started hiring astronauts when I was only 23! Do I remember life without space travel? Of course I remember! My brain's sharp as a tack--do you even know what a tack is?"
"Let me tell you this, boy," I would interrupt as he sputtered to ask another impertinent question. "There's nothing more torturous than having the technology to do something but having those putrid politicians REFUSE to help do it! We were in an economic recession, them trying to tell women what not to have babies, worldwide religious clashes, the planet dying from carbon fuel poison, just out of a war on terrorists (terrorists are bloody hard to find, remember that, boy) and then politicians took money away from space travel! Can you believe it? Space travel! The only hope the people of the world had--just cut its knees right out from under it."
"What about the Dragon's fire? What about the descent of the Phoenix?" my great-nephew Gary will ask. "Do you remember those?"
"Naming all them spacecraft after mythical beasts won't give them no magical powers," I'll croak. "And of course I remember those! But you know what? Accidents happen. When they were inventing regular flights, with airplanes, you know what? People died. Amelia Earhart? Know who that is?" I'll shake my head. "Schools don't teach anything these days. She disappeared. Forever. Never seen again. More people died in car crashes back then than anything else. And murders! All over the place. But you know what? They still flew planes. They still drove cars. They still had babies. What's a couple of suborbital explosions? Sad, maybe. But they aren't the question."
"What is the question?"
"The question is this: who are we and who do we want to be? Are we a nation of cowards and small-minded simpletons? Or are we a nation of intelligent visionaries with a backbone of steel and a work ethic of gold? Because that's what it took, Gary. It took intelligence, steel, and gold. Do you believe that?"
"Of course! We have space ships for people and space ships for mining and space ships for protection and space ships for research and we're mining asteroids in the asteroid belt and have a station set up on Mars!" He gets excited and begins to bounce up and down--because that's what kids do when they get excited.
I tap the top of the holo-monitor, the same spot where webcams used to be on a 2D monitor (now the hologram itself is the camera), and exclaim, "Now you tell me something, boy!Can you imagine living in a world trapped on the surface of the planet? In a country with a government who wouldn't fund space travel? Tell me--can you imagine a world without space?"
