Science is a field of constant change. Here, one cannot afford to get used to the current state of affairs, because the current state of affairs changes like the weather.
This realization hits hard when one thinks of Pluto's "re-classification". In 2006, the IAU - International Astronomical Union - laid down an official definition for planets:
As I understand it, there are still people out there who aren't over this revelation. It took me a while to get over my devastation, too (I was eight years old when I found out). At first, I handed myself over to the authority, thinking, "That's what the adults say, so it must be true." But now, I have a better explanation for my acceptance.
This is science. At the basic level, we try our best to describe the world around us. And for a while, we didn't even know how to define a planet. And now we do, and we find a conflict with what we'd always done and what we should have been doing. So we changed ourselves accordingly.
So what does Rigil Kentaurus have to do with this?
Well, the closest star to the Sun is Proxima Centauri, 4.23 light years away. A binary star system lies just ahead, what we've been calling Alpha Centauri. Only now, its name has been officially changed to Rigil Kentaurus by the IAU.
The IAU has its own rules for star nomenclature, which I'd like to argue be taught in high school with organic compound nomenclature, if not in place of it. The rules are complicated, but I don't doubt fun to learn about.
In the meantime, I will welcome the name Rigil Kentaurus with open arms and hope the name change won't be as controversial as Pluto's "demotion". The two events have a lot in common, I think.
This realization hits hard when one thinks of Pluto's "re-classification". In 2006, the IAU - International Astronomical Union - laid down an official definition for planets:
- It orbits a star (as opposed to a planet, in which case you're thinking about a satellite)
- It's large enough for its gravity to pull it into a round shape (so it looks more like Earth and less like a potato, in which case it's an asteroid)
- Does not share its orbit with anyone else (so it's the only object in its orbit and surrounding areas. If it isn't, it's probably leftover debris from the formation of the solar system.)
As I understand it, there are still people out there who aren't over this revelation. It took me a while to get over my devastation, too (I was eight years old when I found out). At first, I handed myself over to the authority, thinking, "That's what the adults say, so it must be true." But now, I have a better explanation for my acceptance.
This is science. At the basic level, we try our best to describe the world around us. And for a while, we didn't even know how to define a planet. And now we do, and we find a conflict with what we'd always done and what we should have been doing. So we changed ourselves accordingly.
So what does Rigil Kentaurus have to do with this?
Well, the closest star to the Sun is Proxima Centauri, 4.23 light years away. A binary star system lies just ahead, what we've been calling Alpha Centauri. Only now, its name has been officially changed to Rigil Kentaurus by the IAU.
The IAU has its own rules for star nomenclature, which I'd like to argue be taught in high school with organic compound nomenclature, if not in place of it. The rules are complicated, but I don't doubt fun to learn about.
In the meantime, I will welcome the name Rigil Kentaurus with open arms and hope the name change won't be as controversial as Pluto's "demotion". The two events have a lot in common, I think.
