DISC-ussion

By Ann Ulrich Miller

Sighting in Wyoming
          Sheri Gould in Buffalo, Wyo., reported the following UFO sighting: “On Aug. 3, 2006, a little after 3 am (that most magical time), I watched something moving very slowly across the sky northward, right in the direction between Cassiopia and the Pleiades, until I could see it no longer. It looked like three stars moving, but totally synchronous with each other. It looked like an ‘L’ shape — that is to say, it didn’t move like a triangle point, but rather the top and left bottom of the ‘L’ were the front with the right bottom in the rear. It ‘seemed’ that you could see stars right through it, as if it were cloaked somehow. I ‘perceived’ it to be triangular. This was HUGE from my perspective, as it filled the space between Cassiopia and the Pleiades.”

Poor little Pluto
          On Aug. 24, the International Astronomical Union voted to strip Pluto of its planethood, down-grading it to a “dwarf planet” and leaving our solar system with only eight planets. The IAU has never had a definition on record for planets as everyone instinctively knew what a planet was. Apparently not any more. The gray areas between planets and brown dwarfs boil down to three things: their genesis, their orbit and their size. The IAU is working on a new definition, due out in mid-November.