A Warm Hearty Welcome to the Tenth Planet!

Aha! Pluto had us all fooled. For a while, the planet masquerading around so far away from us under the title of the Roman god of the dead and a very lovable and funny Disney dog has lead us to believe it to be the last of our solar system. Tiny, freezing planet. Far, far away. Since its discovery back in the 1950s, we've always been quite certain there must be a planet beyond it but were not definite. But, to be correct to what we currently knew, we must say there are nine planets in our solar system.

Not anymore! NASA and some group in California found yet another! Hiding back there in the darkness beyond our sights and detections is another world they have yet to name. As the writer and webmistress of Science Village, I'd like to welcome this new planet into our scope of "planets we know exist". After lots of research to this effect, and lots of it must be done before something like this should be so publicly confirmed, we can now call it one of our own in our solar system.

This brings me to the subject of astronomy in general. It's very much a natural science and therefore within the scope of Science Village. Aerial Watchman gazes at the stars at night. Village meteorologist Claudia St. Cloud hops around the skies, paying attention to outer space phenomena in regards to weather or if there are meteors or comets floating by. Zookeeper wishes for discovery of aliens so she can add them to her menagerie.

We love our Earth very much. However, occasionally we get the itch to look beyond our happy home to what else is out there among those billions of stars. There have been times I scoffed at space exploration, believing that Earth has so much still left undiscovered, so why bother going anywhere else? Other times, I get the feeling we're not just Earth and the rest of the universe but more like just part of this collective universe, and feel like we're just cooped up in our own little corner, albeit the only known area we can survive without modification.

It's also hard to say how much of a necessity it is to our society right now. Satellites and whatnot are certainly useful. Also nice to watch for how outer space phenomena affect our own weather patterns and such. But what about beyond that? Why do we care about stars or extrasolar planets or if there is life on Mars? Isn't that all just a waste of time?

No! Real science is not a waste of time. It need not remain within the realm of whatever is immediately useful for society, and it can be argued that it all is useful to some degree at some point. The ichthyologist examining bass near Antarctica is not wasting his time. Some may wonder the point, but there is a very nice point. We're trying to learn more about the world (and universe) around us. That is what makes us human. Sadly, whatever is not deemed immediately useful to society doesn't get a whole lot of funding usually. That's the trouble!

It could be said of this tenth planet. We all like knowing it is there. We've suspected it for a good long time. There may well be eleventh and twelfth planets and so on. But why does it matter? I'll tell you why. Because it's there!!!