Special to the Pioneer Times
LITTLETON — The Southern Aroostook Agricultural Museum gained a new attraction Friday when the dwarf planet Pluto was added to the Maine Solar System Model and positioned adjacent to the sign in front of the museum.
Contributed photo/Ben Austin
HOME TO DWARF PLANET PLUTO — Dr. Kevin McCartney of UMPI holds the new model of Pluto, and its moon Charon, as members of the Southern Aroostook Agricultural Museum set it in place to be erected on Friday morning.
Pluto joins Eris and Ceres as the third dwarf planet to be added to the Solar System Model, which currently stretches 80-miles from Presque Isle to Topsfield.
The Southern Aroostook Agricultural Museum committee members felt honored that the museum would be picked as the destination for the new model. The plans for placing the new Pluto in front of the museum came about a year ago, and after a vote by the museum members, it was agreed that the model would be a definite asset.
“It is a great honor for us to get this. People will stop to see the planet outside, and come inside to see what we have at the museum,” explained museum President Colby Shaw.
Shaw also added that he enjoys the combination of old history inside the Agricultural Museum along side the new history of the dwarf planet outside.
The new dwarf planet model of Pluto comes as a result of a change in the definition of a planet, as determined by the International Astronomical Union. A dwarf planet has a more elliptical orbit around the sun, is much smaller than the other planets, and does not clear out objects from their orbits. The original Pluto model still stands at the Houlton Information Center, in order to recognize its past status as a planet.
The difference in positioning of the original Pluto and the new dwarf Pluto is due to the elliptical orbit of the former planet, which causes drastic changes in its distance from the sun. Pluto can vary from 29 to 49 astronomical units from the sun. An astronomical unit is the distance from the planet Earth to the sun. The position in front of the Agricultural Museum, which translates to roughly 33 astronomical units from the three-story high arch representing the sun, is an approximation for the distance Pluto will be from the sun for the next 20 years.
“This may seem a little confusing, but we’re using different methods to determine the locations along Route 1 for planets and dwarf planets,” said Dr. Kevin McCartney, director of the Northern Maine Museum of Science. The NMMS created and maintains the solar system model, which is currently the largest of its kind in the world.
The Maine Solar System Model was started in 1999 and completed, according to how the solar system was seen at the time, in 2003. New plans to add dwarf planets began in 2006, and the first two were added last November.
Pluto, represented by a ceramic knob one inch in diameter, is the only dwarf planet in the model at this time to have a moon. The knob that represents Pluto will be left unpainted for the time being because of a lack of information about the actual color of the dwarf planet. Plans have been made to paint the model in 2015, when the spacecraft New Horizons will take accurate enough photos of Pluto to determine its actual color.
The NMMS has also made unofficial plans to add onto the current solar system if necessary.
“We will put up more dwarf planets as they are formally recognized by the International Astronomical Union,” explained Dr. McCartney.
There is more information on Pluto and the reclassification of dwarf planets at www.IAU.org
