More than 300 astronomers have signed a petition denounced the IAU’s new planet definition that demotes Pluto. The petition states simply:

“We, as planetary scientists and astronomers, do not agree with the IAU’s definition of a planet, nor will we use it. A better definition is needed”

The petition, which began circulating right after last week’s vote, is one more sign that this whole debate is far from over. In another move today, the world’s largest group of planetary scientists issued a statement suggesting the definition would get worked over between now and the next IAU meeting in 2009.

While it might have seemed to the public and the press that Pluto’s demotion was a done deal (and I’m on record as saying the defintion should not be altered beyond minor tweaks to clarify) I would not bet against Pluto’s possible resurgence. Just as science promises to march forward, so too will all this bickering and posturing. And why not? It’s great fun, some of the best scientific theater of our generation.

You can see the petition’s signers here.

What will happen when Europe’s SMART-1 lunar orbiter pile drives itself into the Moon this weekend? Nobody knows for sure.

Amateur and professional astronomers are going to cast an instrumented eye on the Moon late Saturday night into Sunday morning.

At present, the favored prediction is that SMART-1 spacecraft will impact the Moon’s surface Sunday morning at 1:41 a.m. ET. However, it might hit roughly 5 hours earlier on its planned next-to-last orbit.

Many think the chances of seeing something are dim. But they quickly point out the surprising outcome when Comet Shoemaker-Levy 9 fragments punched the face of Jupiter back in 1994. So nobody wants to be caught with their lenses and mirrors down.

There are those who expect to see the SMART-1 impact as a flash on the dark side of the Moon’s terminator, even debris tossed into the sunlight. The bigger the scope the better observe some experts.

Will it be a flash or flash in the pan episode? Inquiring eyes want to know!

Science is constantly being rethought and reworked. Lately, it seems, nothing is sacred. From heavenly bodies to our how our brains relate to the ultimate heavenly being, science is being turned on its head.

Last week we were told Pluto is not really a planet. Today, contrary to previous research, a study reveals there is no “God spot” in our brains. And this one will really get under your skin: Sunscreen can damage your skin!

Crazy stuff, yes. But in many ways this is what we have come to expect from the Newly Exciting World of Science (NEWS). Dot com. Do what you want with that.

To celebrate all this inexactness, also referred to as “scientific progress,” it is our continuing mission at LiveScience to constantly surprise you with little-known scientific facts (as we understand them!) and routine debunkings, all in addition to the daily cool news. To that end, each weekday you will now find another of Life’s Little Mysteries explained (find them on our Home Page, and let us know what you are wondering about).

We’ve also delved into the science (or lack of it) behind urban legends and popular myths. We’ve only scratched the surface so far … the number of fictitious tales ingrained in our culture exceeds even the quantity of planets that would exist in our galaxy were Pluto to have been embraced along with the all the other round things out there.

What actually got me thinking about all this is a background piece we posted yesterday on How Planes Fly. Turns out I had it wrong and had to revise the article, after a handful of astute readers pointed out that I’d fallen victim to a bad explanation that’s been around for decades and is still in textbooks. (Oh, and our Bad Medicine columnist Chris Wanjek reminds us today that those textbook maps of the tongue’s four taste regions are bogus, too.)

Stick with us long enough, and we’re liable to shake just about every scientific notion you’ve ever had. Meantime, shoot me a note whenever something’s got you puzzled. We’ll stick it somewhere in the huge “need to explain this now” pile and do our very best.

It’s been an interesting few weeks here in the universe of space.  Planets are being added, then demoted, Astronauts are getting ready to ride the Space Shuttle Atlantis into space, and media outlets everywhere seem to be having fun with it all.  Time, Newsweek, and ABC are putting space front and center this week.

Got me thinking, after 7+ years of delivering all sorts of amazing news and incredible events on SPACE.com, which has become more popular, human spaceflight or astronomy?

In Spaceflight’s corner, we have:

• Live-on-the-Internet broadcast and reporting of Space Shuttle missions
• Live coverage of the tragedies of human space travel, including the loss of Columbia in 2003
• Moon-to-Mars news and views
• Space Tourists.  Dennis Tito and more
• Space Tourism.  Richard Branson, the X Prize, Bigelow
• The International Space Station

Astronomy’s best and brightest:

• Pluto and the Solar System planets
• Deep Impact
• Earth-bound asteroids
• Solar Flares
• Hubble
• Extrasolar planets
• The Search for Life
• Daily dose of far-out discoveries.

Somewhere in the middle:

• Mars Rovers
• NASA News
• Science issues that affect the long-term health of our own planet

We’ve noticed that over the past 7 years, you:

• Love once-in-a-lifetime events like following the Mars Rovers, rooting for Dennis Tito and cheering for the Scaled Composites team’s winning X Prize flights.
• Grow tired of these events once they start to look easy, happen too frequently or happen too infrequently.  The space tourists that followed Tito, news from the International Space Station, ‘regular’ space shuttle flights.
• Tune out on efforts that can take years and years to come to fruition.  Again, the ISS construction, but we’re also seeing it with the Moon-to-Mars plans.  A loyal audience will follow each and every development, but the general public needs to see milestones more often to become more regularly engaged.
• Love new discoveries.  Extrasolar planet discoveries, new Hubble pictures of a far away galaxy, anything about black holes
• Crave news about pioneers.  Burt Rutan, Richard Branson, Dennis Tito, Elon Musk, Peter Diamandis to name a few.  Leaders with an entrepreneurial spirit and creative vision who are not waiting around for NASA to build the next-great-thing.  Astronauts have lost much of their status as pioneers, becoming modern-day engineers in space
• Have fond memories of space from your childhood.  Who didn’t want to be an astronaut?  Who doesn’t remember studying the original nine planets or the long journey of the Voyager spacecraft?  When the events of today can connect you with an ingrained childhood memory, the public swell of interest and passion around that subject grows significantly.  Pluto anyone?

So, what do you think is more popular, human spaceflight or astronomy? 

Spaceport America is a bit soggy at the moment. The New Mexico spaceport site and surrounding areas is undergoing horrific, monsoon-like rains, breaking 100 year old records.

New Mexico Governor Bill Richardson is seeking Federal disaster assistance for Hatch, New Mexico, for example, with that town near the spaceport practically underwater.

Launch preparations by UP Aerospace at the New Mexico site is being impacted, said Eric Knight, Chief Executive Officer for the group. A dry run of flying an UP Aerospace rocket from the site in the near future – the first liftoff from the spaceport – is being mucked up by the downpours, with roads at the locale essentially impassable.

Knight told SPACE.com that dress rehearsals to fire their suborbital rocket are now shifted to early September.

Our nation’s oil addiction - is Uncle Billy Smith to blame?

Much is being written of late about the nation’s dependency on oil and the daily need to fuel our cars, trucks, railroad locomotives, ships and jetliners. Well, it all goes back to this day in 1859, when Uncle Billy Smith saw a dark film floating on the water of a shaft he was digging near Titusville, Pennsylvania. Soon, the nation’s first commercial oil well was pumping out crude oil.

Today, there are 520,000 oil wells in the U.S., according to the U.S. Census Bureau, producing more than 2-billion barrels of crude oil a year. But to meet our needs, we still need to import over 3.5-billion additional barrels annually, the majority of which comes from Canada, Mexico and Saudi Arabia, the U.S. Department of Energy says. That means that every day, Americans use more than 15-million barrels of petroleum products. Oil addits, indeed. One has to wonder what date will bookend this one, as scientists are already pondering just how long the dwindling supplies will last.

Thanks, Uncle Billy…I think.

It may not break the top 40, but unhappy Pluto fans will probably enjoy this little ditty anyway. Jimmy and the Keyz has put the anger to music …

*** God, I hate the IAU/

They demoted Pluto ***

Hear here, some would say. (Find the song on the right side of his the linked page. Note that the kid’s voice on the song is Jim with an electronic “helium setting,” because his daughter kept crying when she tried to help out, he says.)

Also see Jason’s list of Pluto appearances in media and on clothing.

And don’t miss the first post by our newest blogger, Stephen Maran, author of “Astronomy for Dummies.” Steve has had his head in space almost as long as Pluto’s been around and he has some insight into Astronomers Behaving Badly at the IAU meeting. Welcome aboard, Steve!

Word from Sir Richard Branson’s Virgin Galactic spaceline group is that SpaceShipTwo (SS2) and WhiteKnightTwo are taking shape. “The spaceship is bigger, faster, and pretty gorgeous looking. She has many more new and improved features,” although specific details are still hush-hush – such as what’s behind a new, bigger, rocket engine design.

SS2 will carry 6 passengers and two pilots. First flights are expected to be out of Mojave, California before the move to the new Spaceport America in New Mexico, the Virgin Galactic update notes.

Also, look for a “conceptual interior” of SS2 to show up in late September in New York as part of the Wired NextFest alongside a scale size replica of SpaceShipOne.

According to Virgin Galactic, more than 60,000 people have now registered an interest in becoming Virgin Galactic Astronauts, with 30% from the U.S., 15% from the U.K. and 10% Australia. The number of people who have paid a deposit continues to rise. Virgin Galactic Founder Astronauts come from a range of 13 countries, with around 55% from the U.S. with an approximately 80/20 split male/female.

I missed the meeting in Prague where astronomers stripped Pluto of its planetary status. In fact, I’ve skipped every one of the every-three-years General Assemblies of the International Astronomical Union (IAU) –with one exception- during the several decades that I’ve been an IAU member because the Assemblies were just no fun. (The exception, when I attended in 1988, reinforced my conviction that there are better things to do.)

If you are going away for two weeks in August, I say hit the mountains or the beach, not the IAU General Assembly.

To some US astronomers, the main reason to attend the IAU during the Cold War was to meet Eastern Bloc astronomers who –especially before Stalin died- were rarely permitted to travel abroad, but who were sent to represent their nations at the General Assembly.

A General Assembly of astronomers is not a fun bunch – during the big speeches, there’s nothing to do but sit and listen, take good notes or take a nap. A lot like college, but without sports.

All that went by the boards this past week, as 2500 astronomers met in Prague. They haggled vociferously over the definition of “planet.” They held up cards to signify their votes, like pre-approved bidders at an auction of modern art. They rebelled against the unanimous recommendation of a committee of wise elders, and slogged out a new and complex planet definition in real time, through uproarious sessions, described by a pal on the scene as “Astronomers Behaving Badly.”

Less than a third of IAU’s members actually came to Prague -just 2500 give or take- and by the end of the meeting when the Pluto decisions were taken, only a fraction of those were present and voting. By all accounts, a tough gang of solar system experts prevailed to dump Pluto from the planetary ranks. But, as the media report, other astronomers say that they have just begun to fight.

Well this sounds more like fun. It reminds me of one of those old-time Democratic or Republican party conventions where the convention actually chose the Presidental nominee of the party through dealing and doubledealing in smokefilled rooms and in cliff-hanging polls of all the delegations. At those conventions, every delegate got a chance at a microphone to blurt out unscripted remarks, however self-serving and inappropriate. As a kid, I watched those conventions on a big black and white TV with a tiny screen and I really enjoyed them.

So when the IAU next meets, in Rio in August 2009, I will be there. Ready to wheel and deal and to vote.

You know a space story is a huge space story when you can no longer keep track of all the cultural references to poor old Pluto’s recent demotion.  Everywhere I look, someone is talking about Pluto.  A sampling:

• ESPN Sportcenter introduced their program with a humorous reference to Pluto’s demotion.
• Technorati, the site that monitors 52 million blogs, has had Pluto as their number one search term for the second consecutive day
• The recent sparring match between Stephen Colbert and Neil Tyson on The Colbert Report
• T-shirts for sale (always a good sign)
• Planetary Photoshop contests
• There is a homegrown youtube video circulating
• Someone like Disney ruins the charm of it all

Why all the public reaction and hoopla? Maybe it simply boils down to ingrained chidhood memories.  Like learning multiplication tables or memorizing the Periodic Table, memorizing the planets is something we all have done and can’t easily forget.  Remember “My Very, Eccentric Mother Just Showed Us Nine Planets“?

Even though I’m relieved that a decision was finally made, I can’t help feeling a hint of sadness about losing Pluto.  There’s a hint of that sadness buried in most every culture reference to Pluto this week too.