When the Rose Center for Earth and Space at the American Museum of Natural History reclassified Pluto as an icy comet, the New York Times proclaimed on page one, "Pluto Not a Planet? Only in New York." Immediately, the public, professionals, and press were choosing sides over Pluto's planethood. Pluto is entrenched in our cultural and emotional view of the cosmos, and Neil deGrasse Tyson, award-winning author and director of the Rose Center, is on a quest to discover why. He stood at the heart of the controversy over Pluto's demotion, and consequently Plutophiles have freely shared their opinions with him, including endless hate mail from third-graders. With his inimitable wit, Tyson delivers a minihistory of planets, describes the oversized characters of the people who study them, and recounts how America's favorite planet was ousted from the cosmic hub.

Author Biography

Award winning author Neil deGrasse Tyson is an astrophysicist with the American Museum of Natural History, the director of the world-famous Hayden Planetarium, a monthly columnist for Natural History and the host of the PBS series "NOVA Science NOW". Also available: Death by Black Hole (ISBN 978 0 393 33016 8) and Origins (ISBN 978 0 393 32758 8).