Pluto does not exist
in 1904, and no one is even really looking for it, until Percival Lowell (of the Boston Lowells and Lowell Observatory fame) sets out to look for Planet X in 1905 and dies still looking. Then Pluto is discovered in 1930 as the ninth planet in our solar system and then downgraded in 2006 from major planet status, is reclassified as a dwarf planet like Ceres, and given the number 134340.
Detail, X's foot and plaque indicating the Orbit of Pluto (AKA 134340) on its apparent course over the grounds of Griffith Park Observatory, Griffith Park, December 2007.
It was one of those days after the wind had been blowing and the sky was so clear, my neighbor X called and suggested we drive up to the Observatory which, since its renovation, it has been hard to do unless you park below and take the bus up to the top. Or so we had heard. Apparently the crush and long lines of families with hordes of children have died down, like at the Getty, for on this clear day near Christmas we drove right up the long and winding road to the top of the park, no problem and no one stopping us.
X is much friendlier than I am when it comes to strangers. Or, let's say, much more talkative. She engages people while I am preoccupied with the view or lost in my own thoughts, such as wandering around looking for the ghosts of the cast of Rebel Without a Cause despite the very sunny day (I suspect they're more likely to venture out at dusk or when it's foggy and overcast). So we're standing on the parapet overlooking the grid of the city below while X identifies landmarks --
"There's the Hollyhock House. See? Over in that tidy mound of olive trees."
"There's the Scientology Center."
"There's the Harbor Building which used to be Getty Oil."
Enboldened by her discoveries made with nothing but the naked eye, X quickly feeds the telescope bolted to the balustrade with a couple of my quarters. "And there's your window," she looks up and announces in triumph, grasping me by the ears and pushing my head in to confirm her sighting for myself before the meter runs out.
"We can see our house from here," she exclaims to the Asian tour group headed our way as if offering to help them find theirs. They nod mutely and bow as they give us both a wide a berth. I fuss with my zoom lens while X next starts up a conversation with the shy single young man I'd noticed earlier glancing over her shoulder at me.
"Are you visiting?" I hear X inquire. "You are? From where? Pittsburgh? Have you seen the Hollyhock House? It's right over there." She points east. "Do you know that's the ocean over there?" She asks as if she is afraid he's mistaken it for more blue sky, as people sometimes do, and now she's pointing west. "Have you ever heard of Catalina Island? Usually you can't see it. All the smog. But we've had some wind lately. There it is, right there." She is about to guide him physically in his viewing pleasure when she catches sight of someone on a terrace below us, and while distracted, Mr. Pittsburgh manages to escape.
We had already spent time out front of the Observatory admiring the way the resident astronomers or designers or Observatory professionals involved in the recent renovation of the grounds and facilities had laid out the course of the planets in the pavement. "How do they do this?" X asked of me when we came upon Pluto's orbit, and was unsatisfied with my admittedly feeble explanation. Somehow however, and I can only imagine intuitively, X seemed to know that the man she had just spotted -- who certainly looked official enough -- might be able to provide some answers. He happened to be standing on a section of terrace which had embedded lines indicating the various solstices and equnoxes.
"Who did this?" X demands in that friendly forthright tone of voice coupled with a fearlessly good-natured manner that a person who has grown up in the Midwest will immediately recognize in other Midwesterners, often at exactly this kind of place, which is to say, a tourist destination, or at a rest stop along one of the Interstates cutting through Ohio, Indiana and Illinois, or the way perhaps a teacher breaking up a fight in an Indiana State School for Boys might ask, "Who started this?" or that no-nonsense tone a uniformed State Police officer walking toward you and your friends in your Mom's Plymouth Valiant from his black-and-white after a high speed chase, might say, "Get out of the car with your hands up."
The man confesses that in fact, he has been responsible. That is, that he had designed the layout for the various demarcations and --
"Well I am glad," X continues, "that you are on this planet with us, to be able to do something like this. Something so educational and instructional and," she casts about for another good word, "and complicated."
The man suggests that really in fact all he had done involved not much more than the use of some basic high school geometry and --
"I hated high school geometry," X explains.
So we learned a lot that brisk sunny morning up at Griffith Park from the Observatory Official. We learned that Pluto's orbit is different from the other planets'. Pluto's orbit is highly inclined to the ecliptic and highly eccentric -- which is to say elliptical. Pluto's orbit is even, if you go way beyond say, 10 to 20 million years, chaotic. Which doesn't mean Pluto is unstable, but that it's unpredictable far into the future. Except fortunately for us, predictable enough for general purposes and the time period we happen to be living in.
And so if you are up at the Griffith Observatory, standing where you're facing the Observatory (which is to say south) and the Hollywood Sign is over your right shoulder (north west) and the statues of the great astronomers (Copernicus, Galileo, Kepler, and some other guys we don't know) is to your immediate left (east) and you can still see the bust of James Dean on its pedestal in the peripheral vision of your unaided right eye, (south west) then you can see exactly where Pluto goes overhead when it makes its eccentric and highly inclined orbit around the sun, sometimes getting closer to the sun and sometimes almost like it's going to run into Neptune but it doesn't.
You stand there -- or depending on your mood on any of the other planetary orbits -- and I suspect you will discover that X is right. You will be glad there are astronomers in the world. And you will feel a sense of being connected. To the movement of the planets overhead. Even the minor and eccentric and highly inclined one. You will feel grateful to be on this planet. And grateful that, even if you never cared for high school geometry, at least someone else was paying attention.
Detail, X's foot and plaque indicating the Orbit of Pluto (AKA 134340) on its apparent course over the grounds of Griffith Park Observatory, Griffith Park, December 2007.
It was one of those days after the wind had been blowing and the sky was so clear, my neighbor X called and suggested we drive up to the Observatory which, since its renovation, it has been hard to do unless you park below and take the bus up to the top. Or so we had heard. Apparently the crush and long lines of families with hordes of children have died down, like at the Getty, for on this clear day near Christmas we drove right up the long and winding road to the top of the park, no problem and no one stopping us.
X is much friendlier than I am when it comes to strangers. Or, let's say, much more talkative. She engages people while I am preoccupied with the view or lost in my own thoughts, such as wandering around looking for the ghosts of the cast of Rebel Without a Cause despite the very sunny day (I suspect they're more likely to venture out at dusk or when it's foggy and overcast). So we're standing on the parapet overlooking the grid of the city below while X identifies landmarks --
"There's the Hollyhock House. See? Over in that tidy mound of olive trees."
"There's the Scientology Center."
"There's the Harbor Building which used to be Getty Oil."
Enboldened by her discoveries made with nothing but the naked eye, X quickly feeds the telescope bolted to the balustrade with a couple of my quarters. "And there's your window," she looks up and announces in triumph, grasping me by the ears and pushing my head in to confirm her sighting for myself before the meter runs out.
"We can see our house from here," she exclaims to the Asian tour group headed our way as if offering to help them find theirs. They nod mutely and bow as they give us both a wide a berth. I fuss with my zoom lens while X next starts up a conversation with the shy single young man I'd noticed earlier glancing over her shoulder at me.
"Are you visiting?" I hear X inquire. "You are? From where? Pittsburgh? Have you seen the Hollyhock House? It's right over there." She points east. "Do you know that's the ocean over there?" She asks as if she is afraid he's mistaken it for more blue sky, as people sometimes do, and now she's pointing west. "Have you ever heard of Catalina Island? Usually you can't see it. All the smog. But we've had some wind lately. There it is, right there." She is about to guide him physically in his viewing pleasure when she catches sight of someone on a terrace below us, and while distracted, Mr. Pittsburgh manages to escape.
We had already spent time out front of the Observatory admiring the way the resident astronomers or designers or Observatory professionals involved in the recent renovation of the grounds and facilities had laid out the course of the planets in the pavement. "How do they do this?" X asked of me when we came upon Pluto's orbit, and was unsatisfied with my admittedly feeble explanation. Somehow however, and I can only imagine intuitively, X seemed to know that the man she had just spotted -- who certainly looked official enough -- might be able to provide some answers. He happened to be standing on a section of terrace which had embedded lines indicating the various solstices and equnoxes.
"Who did this?" X demands in that friendly forthright tone of voice coupled with a fearlessly good-natured manner that a person who has grown up in the Midwest will immediately recognize in other Midwesterners, often at exactly this kind of place, which is to say, a tourist destination, or at a rest stop along one of the Interstates cutting through Ohio, Indiana and Illinois, or the way perhaps a teacher breaking up a fight in an Indiana State School for Boys might ask, "Who started this?" or that no-nonsense tone a uniformed State Police officer walking toward you and your friends in your Mom's Plymouth Valiant from his black-and-white after a high speed chase, might say, "Get out of the car with your hands up."
The man confesses that in fact, he has been responsible. That is, that he had designed the layout for the various demarcations and --
"Well I am glad," X continues, "that you are on this planet with us, to be able to do something like this. Something so educational and instructional and," she casts about for another good word, "and complicated."
The man suggests that really in fact all he had done involved not much more than the use of some basic high school geometry and --
"I hated high school geometry," X explains.
So we learned a lot that brisk sunny morning up at Griffith Park from the Observatory Official. We learned that Pluto's orbit is different from the other planets'. Pluto's orbit is highly inclined to the ecliptic and highly eccentric -- which is to say elliptical. Pluto's orbit is even, if you go way beyond say, 10 to 20 million years, chaotic. Which doesn't mean Pluto is unstable, but that it's unpredictable far into the future. Except fortunately for us, predictable enough for general purposes and the time period we happen to be living in.
And so if you are up at the Griffith Observatory, standing where you're facing the Observatory (which is to say south) and the Hollywood Sign is over your right shoulder (north west) and the statues of the great astronomers (Copernicus, Galileo, Kepler, and some other guys we don't know) is to your immediate left (east) and you can still see the bust of James Dean on its pedestal in the peripheral vision of your unaided right eye, (south west) then you can see exactly where Pluto goes overhead when it makes its eccentric and highly inclined orbit around the sun, sometimes getting closer to the sun and sometimes almost like it's going to run into Neptune but it doesn't.
You stand there -- or depending on your mood on any of the other planetary orbits -- and I suspect you will discover that X is right. You will be glad there are astronomers in the world. And you will feel a sense of being connected. To the movement of the planets overhead. Even the minor and eccentric and highly inclined one. You will feel grateful to be on this planet. And grateful that, even if you never cared for high school geometry, at least someone else was paying attention.
Comments