On the grand scale of the universe, Northern Arizona is relatively small and insignificant.
Yet out on the far edge of our solar system, an orb two-thirds the size of our moon remained unknown to us until astronomer Clyde Tombaugh discovered it 93 years ago from Lowell Observatory on Mars Hill, west of Flagstaff.
Officially the ninth planet from the sun until it was demoted in 2006, Pluto was an object of wonder, a superlative for extreme distance, a synonym for isolation and the de facto terminus of our solar system — when excluding the more distant Kuiper belt and the nebulous Oort cloud of wayward asteroids and comets.
After Pluto’s demotion from planet to dwarf planet or “plutoid” by the International Astronomical Union, Lowell Observatory, from where Pluto was first located on Feb. 18, 1930, launched the I Heart Pluto Festival in conjunction with the city of Flagstaff to celebrate this dwarf planet and the role our region played in discovering it.
Last month I performed and lectured on slam poetry for the Flagstaff Leadership Program, which included delivering a piece written as an open letter to Pluto about its demotion.
An attendee shared this with the staff at Lowell Observatory, who asked me to perform it at the festival at the Orpheum Theatre’s “A Night of Discovery” this Saturday, between a presentation by Lowell historian Kevin Schindler and keynote speaker NASA astronaut Nicole Stott.
Nine years after Tombaugh died in 1997, NASA launched the New Horizons space probe toward Pluto. In July 2015, the probe passed Pluto at a speed of 32,000 mph and took the first clear pictures of Pluto’s surface, as well as photos of its moon, Charon, and its satellites Styx, Nix, Kerberos and Hydra.
Aboard the probe, in a tiny canister on the side, was one ounce of Tombaugh’s ashes, meaning that a small portion of him has traveled further from earth than any other human being in our history.
I will also be performing a poem about Tombaugh, who built a telescope as a teen from machine parts he found around his family farm in Kansas. The poem contemplates what Tombaugh and Pluto could have said to each other between their encounter and the four-and-a-half hours it took for those first images of Pluto to travel at lightspeed back to Earth.
Serendipitously, prior to the “Night of Discovery” celebration, Tombaugh’s family will donate that nine-inch telescope to Lowell Observatory’s collection.
Lowell Observatory has invited the Sedona Red Rock News to cover numerous events in the past. In July 2012, the observatory built the Discovery Channel Telescope near Happy Jack, east of Sedona. To celebrate the “first light” image, a photograph of Messier 109, a barred-arm galaxy 83.5 million light-years from earth in the constellation Ursa Major, the keynote speaker was NASA astronaut Neil Armstrong, the first man to walk on the moon.
It was Armstrong’s last in-person speech and his penultimate interview before he died in August 2012. Photojournalist Tom Hood and I were honored to cover the event for our readers, and it still ranks as one of the best events we reported for Larson Newspapers.
Coincidently, the Apollo 14 astronauts trained in a man-made crater field near Cottonwood in 1970, the remnants of which are still visible.
While Feb. 18 is also the launch of the Sedona International Film Festival, for those who want a dash of science and discovery before a week of film, you are welcome to attend the I Heart Pluto Festival, which kicks off on Thursday, Feb. 16, and runs through Monday, Feb. 20. Details of the events can be found on page 2B of today’s edition.
Whether Pluto is considered a planet or not, Lowell Observatory continues to make discoveries that expand our understanding of our solar system, galaxy and the universe itself, inspiring us and our children to reach beyond the bounds of earth.
Alcyonia Lacus, a possible frozen nitrogen lake on Pluto’s surface, is named for the bottomless lake in or in the vicinity of Lerna, a region of Greece known for springs and swamps; the Alcyonian lake was one of the entrances to the underworld in Greek mythology.
Elcano Montes is a mountain range honoring Juan Sebastián Elcano (1476–1526), the Spanish explorer who in 1522 completed the first circumnavigation of the Earth (a voyage started in 1519 by Magellan).
Hunahpu Valles is a system of canyons named for one of the Hero Twins in Mayan mythology, who defeated the lords of the underworld in a ball game.
Khare crater honors planetary scientist Bishun Khare (1933–2013), an expert on the chemistry of planetary atmospheres who did laboratory work leading to several seminal papers on tholins – the organic molecules that probably account for the darkest and reddest regions on Pluto.
Kiladze crater honors Rolan Kiladze (1931–2010), the Georgian (Caucasus) astronomer who made pioneering early investigations the dynamics, astrometry and photometry of Pluto.
Lowell Regio is a large region honoring Percival Lowell (1855–1916), the American astronomer who founded Lowell Observatory and organized a systematic search for a planet beyond Neptune.
Mwindo Fossae is a network of long, narrow depressions named for the Nyanga (Eastern Dem. Rep. Congo/Zaire) epic hero who traveled to the underworld and after returning home became a wise and powerful king.
Piccard Mons is a mountain and suspected cryovolcano that honors Auguste Piccard (1884–1962), a 20th century inventor and physicist best known for his pioneering balloon flights into Earth’s upper atmosphere.
Pigafetta Montes honors Antonio Pigafetta (c. 1491–c. 1531), the Italian scholar and explorer who chronicled the discoveries made during the first circumnavigation of the Earth, aboard Magellan’s ships.
Piri Rupes is a long cliff honoring Ahmed Muhiddin Piri (c. 1470–1553), also known as Piri Reis, an Ottoman navigator and cartographer known for his world map. He also drew some of the earliest existing maps of North and Central America.
Simonelli crater honors astronomer Damon Simonelli (1959–2004), whose wide-ranging research included the formation history of Pluto.
Wright Mons honors the Wright brothers, Orville (1871–1948) and Wilbur (1867–1912), American aviation pioneers credited with building and flying the world’s first successful airplane.
Vega Terra is a large land mass named for the Soviet Vega 1 and 2 missions, the first spacecraft to fly balloons on another planet (Venus) and to image the nucleus of a comet (1P/Halley).
Venera Terra is named for the Venera missions sent to Venus by the Soviet Union from 1961–1984; they included the first human-made device to enter the atmosphere of another planet, to make a soft landing on another planet and to return images from another planetary surface.
(Credits: NASA/JHUAPL/SwRI/Ross Beyer)
“Dear Pluto”
By Christopher Fox Graham, April 20, 2012
To the planet formerly known as Pluto,
Though we will never meet
I think I know you
I am a speck of organic matter
standing on the surface of your sister
my people and I
are converted from ice and dust
electrified into existence
by the mere circumstances
of your sister Earth and nephew Moon
dancing with tide pools
when they were still in their infancy
mere molecules slammed together
and held onto each other in strings
which took billions of years
to mistake themselves in their reproduction
to form this all-too-young boy
sending you this letter
forgive my impetuousness, dear Pluto
but compared to you,
I only have a second
before this organic matter caves in on itself
becomes dust and water to form something new
all I have is my voice
and I beg you to listen
because although we will never meet
I think I know you
I’m not sure if you will receive this letter
In the time it takes to reach you,
I could bounce between here and the sun 16 times
measured on your timescale
my country is not even a year old yet
You’re farther away from the sun
than any of your siblings
and while the rest of those planets circulate in lockstep
in the same elliptical orbit
yours is full of highs and lows
as you rise above the plane
and drop beneath it
because you’re either bipolar
of just refuse to conform
be glad you’ve been able to do it so long
here, those who are different
either by choice or accident
wind up getting bullied, brutalized or crucified
and while I could explain what those words mean
let’s hope that by the time one of us stands on your surface
we’ve forgotten what they mean, too
At Lowell Observatory in the hills overlooking Flagstaff
astronomer Clyde Tombaugh picked you out from the black
he watched you wander at the edge of the solar system
and noted how you keep your distance
from everyone else like you
I know what it feels like to be alone, too
there are times when people here
believe the sun is so far away they don’t feel warm anymore
and they stare out into the black
and wonder what’s like to just let go
I’m glad you’ve stayed with us, dear Pluto
you show us that even when the universe is terrifying cold
there’s some light to hold on to
some reason to keep moving
and even out there you and your moon Charon
prove you can find love anywhere
since we began to worship stars
we have followed your siblings
the rocky worlds, the gas giants
to us, if they were bigger than an asteroid or moon
and weren’t furnaces like the sun,
they were a planet
deserving the name of a god
an astrological house
and a certain amount of inexplicable reverence
you were nine children of a yellow sun
on the rural edge of the galaxy
but now because your size doesn’t fit new rules
the International Astronomical Union on my world
has decided you are no longer a planet
you don’t meet the qualifications anymore
you no longer govern an astrological house
they took you away from you were to us
because some ink on paper said you didn’t matter anymore
they put you a box labeled “dwarf planets” or “Plutoids”
only to be ostracized from your brothers and sisters
by faceless strangers at the stroke of pen
here, we label people too,
segregate them into boxes
based on the color of their skins
or which one of those gods they called out to while dying
or whether they love someone with the same or different parts
or in what way they their throats make noises to communicate
or even by where they were born
as if point of origin means anything
on a planet spinning 1,600 kilometers per second,
where specks like me have wandered to every part of it
tell me, dear Pluto
can you see the borders of our nations from out there?
it seems that’s all we can see down here sometimes
can you tell us apart?
if we one day reach you
dig our fingers into your dirt
would you care about what language we used
to tell each other
how beautiful the moment was?
Dear Pluto,
I know what it feels like to be small
I’m still a little boy, too
playing grown-up games
wondering what happens
when there’s nothing left to orbit anymore
Though we will never meet
you don’t have to answer this letter if it ever reaches you
but I think you know me,
I am a tiny voice on your sister Earth
and you are Pluto, the ninth planet of the sun
“Clyde Tombaugh”
A companion poem to “Dear Pluto,” by Christopher Fox Graham, January 27, 2016
The Kansas boy stares into the sky
counting stars with his fingers
pretending he can touch each one
playing piano keys with constellations
the spheres make music most us will never hear
but he orchestrates symphonies
oboes in Orion
clarinets in Cancer
violins in Virgo
percussion rumbling off supernova timpanies
snare drums on the skin of black holes
while spinning quasars keep perfect rhythm
the boy, now a teen measures stars with his telescopes
built from leftover parts
shaping steel and mirrors
to bend the light down into his hands
he wants to hold the weight of stardust
in his palm
the boy, now a man,
works on Mars Hill
the evening shift at Lowell Observatory
scouring the images for differences
one single speck out of place
but these were skies he could paint from memory
on a night like tonight
a cold February
the man became a boy again
when he found a spot
hide-and-seeking with him
telling him the stars and planets were looking back at us
an undiscovered instrument
making music he was the first to hear
a ninth symphony he held for a moment
heard alone, echoing in solitary discovery
before he shared it with the world
76 years later,
nine years after his death
mankind’s ship in a bottle
broke the bonds of earth to reach out
and find New Horizons
in the cold dark of space
in a case no bigger than heart of a boy
now 2.97 billion miles from Kansas
from Mars Hill
from our entire history
are the ashes of the man who first heard the music
after six years alone in the dark
he traveled farther than anyone in history
to visit a world unseen by human eyes
and last July, the man became a boy again
matching his imagination to the globe in front of him
visiting an undiscovered country held for a moment
a solitary discovery
before he shared it with the world
at that distance, signals and light take 4 and half hours to reach home
in those hours,
Clyde Tombaugh,
you had a world captivated in the silence
waiting 4 billion years
for someone to visit
what did you talk about?
did she ask
what the sun feels like
when so much closer?
how it warms your skin in summer?
did she tell you her story?
what it’s like to be so far away, alone in night?
how her years pass in centuries?
did you tell her about us?
about Kansas
about Mars Hill
about what it feels like to hold stardust in your palm?
did you tell her there were 7 billion boys and girls back home
waiting to see her for the first time?
was she eager to meet you since she first saw you
playing hide and seek with your telescopes
or counting stars with your fingers
or did she just sing a song?
one half of an unfinished duet
a harmony you already knew
something slow and beautiful
a secret
only two lovers
can understand
