Pluto

Robert Spano returned to Symphony Hall Thursday to conduct the BSO in a program built on Gustav Holst's much-loved orchestral suite "The Planets. " It's been a long time since Holst's most famous work has been so astronomically au courant. His sprawling celestial portrait gallery has always omitted Pluto, since it had not been discovered when the piece was completed in 1916. But last year, poor Pluto was downgraded to "dwarf planet," lending Holst's work the sense of galactic wholeness it had lacked for decades.

Mike Brown, a professor of astronomy at the California Institute of Technology, has written the strangest “addiction’’ memoir you may ever read. Brown’s personal narrative doesn’t explore demons like drug or alcohol abuse, nor does he offer any shocking private revelations. Brown’s addictions are twofold: first, finding faraway objects in the sky, and second, understanding the difference between planets and other large objects in space. In his Ahab-like search for a 10th planet, Brown would transform our understanding of what a planet is, thereby triggering a historic reexamination of...

Mike Brown, a professor of astronomy at the California Institute of Technology, has written the strangest “addiction’’ memoir you may ever read. Brown’s personal narrative doesn’t explore demons like drug or alcohol abuse, nor does he offer any shocking private revelations. Brown’s addictions are twofold: first, finding faraway objects in the sky, and second, understanding the difference between planets and other large objects in space. In his Ahab-like search for a 10th planet, Brown would transform our understanding of what a planet is, thereby triggering a historic reexamination of...

In 1951, six sixth-graders asked Albert Einstein to solve a class dispute about “whether there would be living things on earth if the sun burnt out.” “Dear Children,’’ Einstein replied, “. . . Without sunlight there is: no wheat, no bread, no grass, no cattle, no meat, no milk, and everything would be frozen. No LIFE.’’ The sun is everything to us: our lifeline, our energy source, our tether to the Milky Way. It “so obviously embraces us . . .,’’ argues Richard Cohen in a prodigious new book, “Chasing the Sun: The Epic Story of the Star that Gives Us...

Neil Jordan, the director of "The Crying Game" and "Interview With the Vampire," has an appetite for carnal perversity. He also has a sense of humor about lust and sexuality that can keep even the weightiest outing from turning gravely serious. Happily, we can add "Breakfast on Pluto" to the Jordan collection. Based on a novel by Patrick McCabe, it's the story of Patrick Braden (Cillian Murphy), a gay Irish orphan and flawless cross-dresser who prefers to be called "Kitten. " In the novel, his nickname is a dirtier synonym, but this less vulgar redaction is apt nonetheless: Murphy's delicate...

LOS ANGELES -- Astronomers announced yesterday that they have discovered a new planet larger than Pluto in orbit around the sun. The discovery in the outlying regions of solar system was made with the Samuel Oschin Telescope at the Palomar Observatory, planetary scientist Mike Brown of the California Institute of Technology said in a statement. The unnamed planet would be the 10th in the solar system, although there are scientists who dispute the classification of Pluto as a planet.

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. -- An unmanned NASA spacecraft the size and shape of a concert piano hurtled toward Pluto yesterday on a 3-billion-mile journey to the solar system's last unexplored planet -- a voyage so long that some of the scientists who will be celebrating its arrival are still in junior high. The New Horizons spacecraft blasted off aboard an Atlas V rocket in a spectacular start to the $700 million mission. Though it is the fastest spacecraft ever launched, capable of reaching 36,000 miles per hour, it will take 9 1/2 years to reach Pluto and the frozen, sunless...

In 1951, six sixth-graders asked Albert Einstein to solve a class dispute about “whether there would be living things on earth if the sun burnt out.” “Dear Children,’’ Einstein replied, “. . . Without sunlight there is: no wheat, no bread, no grass, no cattle, no meat, no milk, and everything would be frozen. No LIFE.’’ The sun is everything to us: our lifeline, our energy source, our tether to the Milky Way. It “so obviously embraces us . . .,’’ argues Richard Cohen in a prodigious new book, “Chasing the Sun: The Epic Story of...

LONDON - Venetia Phair, who was 11 years old when she suggested Pluto as the name of the newly discovered planet, has died at age 90, her family said. She died at home in Epsom on April 30, the family said; the cause of death was not disclosed. Born Venetia Burney, she suggested the name to her grandfather at breakfast in 1930. "My grandfather, as usual, opened the paper, The Times, and in it he read that a new planet had been discovered," she recalled in a short film, "Naming Pluto," released earlier this year.

LOS ANGELES -- A distant, icy rock whose discovery shook up the solar system and led to Pluto's planetary demise has been given a name: Eris. The christening of Eris, named after the Greek goddess of chaos and strife, was announced by the International Astronomical Union on Wednesday. Weeks earlier, the professional astronomers' group stripped Pluto of its planethood under new controversial guidelines. Since its discovery last year, Eris, which had been known as 2003 UB313, ignited a debate about what constitutes a planet.

One of the great delights in reading historical fiction is teasing out fact from invention, a pleasure accentuated by the central theme of Michael Byers’s latest novel, “Percival’s Planet.’’ In this quietly poignant book about the search for Planet X (eventually known as Pluto), all of the fictional characters orbiting Clyde Tombaugh, the astronomer who discovered Pluto, are in some way navigating that thin and shifting border between what’s literal and imagined, between what’s real and simply longed for. At the start of the 20th century, wealthy Boston astronomer Percival Lowell,...

LONDON - Venetia Phair, who was 11 years old when she suggested Pluto as the name of the newly discovered planet, has died at age 90, her family said. She died at home in Epsom on April 30, the family said; the cause of death was not disclosed. Born Venetia Burney, she suggested the name to her grandfather at breakfast in 1930. "My grandfather, as usual, opened the paper, The Times, and in it he read that a new planet had been discovered," she recalled in a short film, "Naming Pluto," released earlier this year.

Robert Spano returned to Symphony Hall Thursday to conduct the BSO in a program built on Gustav Holst's much-loved orchestral suite "The Planets. " It's been a long time since Holst's most famous work has been so astronomically au courant. His sprawling celestial portrait gallery has always omitted Pluto, since it had not been discovered when the piece was completed in 1916. But last year, poor Pluto was downgraded to "dwarf planet," lending Holst's work the sense of galactic wholeness it had lacked for decades.

LOS ANGELES -- A distant, icy rock whose discovery shook up the solar system and led to Pluto's planetary demise has been given a name: Eris. The christening of Eris, named after the Greek goddess of chaos and strife, was announced by the International Astronomical Union on Wednesday. Weeks earlier, the professional astronomers' group stripped Pluto of its planethood under new controversial guidelines. Since its discovery last year, Eris, which had been known as 2003 UB313, ignited a debate about what constitutes a planet.

SEATTLE -- More news yesterday from the International Astronomical Union general assembly in Prague. In the wake of their controversial decision to demote Pluto, the astronomers have agreed to officially recognize Planet Manny as the new ninth celestial body in our solar system. Makes sense. Planet Manny operates in his own orbit and hits baseballs into outer space. He's certainly no dwarf planet like Pluto. Closing the loop on another weird week, Manny Ramírez last night made his first start since Wednesday in Anaheim.

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. -- An unmanned NASA spacecraft the size and shape of a concert piano hurtled toward Pluto yesterday on a 3-billion-mile journey to the solar system's last unexplored planet -- a voyage so long that some of the scientists who will be celebrating its arrival are still in junior high. The New Horizons spacecraft blasted off aboard an Atlas V rocket in a spectacular start to the $700 million mission. Though it is the fastest spacecraft ever launched, capable of reaching 36,000 miles per hour, it will take 9 1/2 years to reach Pluto and the...

One of the great delights in reading historical fiction is teasing out fact from invention, a pleasure accentuated by the central theme of Michael Byers’s latest novel, “Percival’s Planet.’’ In this quietly poignant book about the search for Planet X (eventually known as Pluto), all of the fictional characters orbiting Clyde Tombaugh, the astronomer who discovered Pluto, are in some way navigating that thin and shifting border between what’s literal and imagined, between what’s real and simply longed for. At the start of the 20th century, wealthy Boston astronomer Percival Lowell,...

SEATTLE -- More news yesterday from the International Astronomical Union general assembly in Prague. In the wake of their controversial decision to demote Pluto, the astronomers have agreed to officially recognize Planet Manny as the new ninth celestial body in our solar system. Makes sense. Planet Manny operates in his own orbit and hits baseballs into outer space. He's certainly no dwarf planet like Pluto. Closing the loop on another weird week, Manny Ramírez last night made his first start since Wednesday in Anaheim.

Neil Jordan, the director of "The Crying Game" and "Interview With the Vampire," has an appetite for carnal perversity. He also has a sense of humor about lust and sexuality that can keep even the weightiest outing from turning gravely serious. Happily, we can add "Breakfast on Pluto" to the Jordan collection. Based on a novel by Patrick McCabe, it's the story of Patrick Braden (Cillian Murphy), a gay Irish orphan and flawless cross-dresser who prefers to be called "Kitten. " In the novel, his nickname is a dirtier synonym, but this less vulgar redaction is apt nonetheless: Murphy's delicate...

LOS ANGELES -- Astronomers announced yesterday that they have discovered a new planet larger than Pluto in orbit around the sun. The discovery in the outlying regions of solar system was made with the Samuel Oschin Telescope at the Palomar Observatory, planetary scientist Mike Brown of the California Institute of Technology said in a statement. The unnamed planet would be the 10th in the solar system, although there are scientists who dispute the classification of Pluto as a planet.