Mary’s violet eyes could put John to sleep
Petty bickering ignited by discovery of 10th planet
Shawna Sweeney, Virgo
The mnemonics community was thrown into turmoil last month as the announcement of a tenth planet, 2003 UB313, interrupted almost a century of uneasy agreement on use of the popular phrase “Mary’s Violet Eyes Make John Stay Up Nights Period” to represent the order of planets.
The object was initially captured by Mike Brown, Chad Trujillo and David Rabinowitz at California’s Palomar Observatory in October 2003, but not officially discovered in photographs until January 2005. It lies beyond Pluto in the Kuiper Belt almost 10 billion miles from the sun, and is estimated to be 3000 – 5000 kilometres in diameter.
The team presented their findings to the scientific community on July 28 and then submitted 2003 UB313 to the International Astronomical Union for planetary consideration.
“I haven’t heard of anything like this since the discovery of Pluto in 1930,” said Mike Atkinson of the Mnemonics Research Institute. “That was such an embarrassing debacle. No one knew what to do until Martha Dennis stepped up to the plate and suggested we just pronounce the period at the end.”
Dennis’s quick thinking may have staved off further discussion for 75 years, but 2003 UB313 has opened old wounds and thrust Mary’s mnemonic back in the spotlight.
Some industry members have long believed that Pluto should never have been classified as a planet in the first place, and refuse to add a period to the end of the planetary order.
“Pluto’s just not big enough to be a planet,” explained Cathy Evans of Mnemonic Horizons. “Period.”
Other naysayers claim that Pluto’s strange orbit disqualifies it from planetary status since it intersects with the orbit of Neptune every two centuries.
“For 20 years every 228 years, Pluto intersects the orbit of Neptune and becomes the eighth “planet.” Now, I don’t know what kind of crazy planets you acknowledge, but that sounds awful fishy to me,” said David Blake of UFO Unlimited.
Despite hot debate on how planets become planets, most mnemonic specialists have embraced the tenth member with open arms and turned a cautious eye toward the uncertain future.
“Conjecture is useless at this point,” said Brian Beans of Name Games Inc. “We don’t know what this little sucker is going to be called or even if the IAU will accept it. How can we be expected to change the mnemonic phrase already?”
The planet was unofficially named both “Xena,” after a warrior princess in a popular TV show, and “Lila,” after astronomer Mike Brown’s newborn daughter. But as regulations prohibit the designation of official names until a decision is made on an object’s planetary status, IAU’s decision awaits clarification of planetary guidelines and further concrete data on 2003 UB313’s actual diameter.
Initial attempts to locate the object from the Spitzer space telescope and verify its size have failed, but a technical glitch may have prevented proper detection. Further telescopic observation has been scheduled for August 25 and 26, but Mary’s violet eyes may have to shed a tear and close forever to make room for the future of our solar system.
Some of the names and organizations in this article may be fictitious.
