Astronomer upset at new planet proposal

Michael Brown, an astronomer at the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, Calif., poses with, among other things, a computer screensaver image of his 13-month-old daughter Lilah, on the campus Friday, Aug. 18, 2006. Few planet hunters stand to gain as much as Brown if our solar system balloons to 12 planets under a proposed new definition. He's spotted more than a dozen objects that might qualify as planets. So why is he upset? "When I was a kid, planets were special," he said. "This definition takes the magic out of the solar system." It was Brown's discovery of an icy rock bigger than Pluto that helped lead astronomers to rethink their definition of what a planet is. But Brown doesn't think his discovery, or even Pluto, which was spotted in 1930, should qualify as true planets. (Photo/Damian Dovarganes)