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Pluto Reclassification

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I N BRIEF In 2006, the planet known as Pluto was reclassified as a dwarf world. Over a decade later, this error is finally being corrected by astronomers. Welcome to a solar system that, once again, has nine planets. Today is a historic day—one that will bring joy to the hundreds of millions of Pluto lovers around the globe. The International Astronomical Union (IAU), the body that is responsible for naming and classifying objects in the cosmos, has just announced that Pluto has been reclassified as a major planet. Image credit: Quark Tees That’s right, the little dwarf will be rejoining the ranks of Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune, and Planet-X (the planet that will surely spell doom for all humanity). As many of you know, in 2006, the IAU made their  infamous vote, deciding to demote  everyone’s favorite planet to a “dwarf planet.” Their reasoning was that too many people would confuse Pluto (the doggy of Disney fame) with...
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A New Theory of Gravity Just Passed its First Test. Here’s What This Means for Physics

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IN BRIEF Erik Verlinde's emergent gravity theory makes sense of the behavior of gravity without the need for the existence of a dark matter particle. Researchers from the Leiden Observatory have studied more than 33,000 galaxies to see if Verlinde’s theory checks out. EMERGENT GRAVITY In 2010, renowned string theory expert Erik Verlinde from the University of Amsterdam and the Delta Institute for Theoretical Physics proposed that  gravity is not a fundamental force  of nature, but rather an “emergent phenomenon.” And now, one hundred years after Einstein published  the final version  of his general theory of relativity, Verlinde  published his paper  expounding on his stance on gravity—with a big claim that challenges the very foundation of physics as we know it. Verlinde’s emergent gravity theory makes one very important implication: dark matter does not exist. His research makes sense of the behavior of gravity  without  the n...
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