Chicago was given the shaft last Friday as the IOC denied them the rights to hold the 2016 Summer Games. Residents of Tokyo and Madrid were similarly dismissed by a group of about 100 that decided that Rio de Janeiro was more worthy. To paraphrase a seldom seen movie from the ‘80s that I refuse to identify: Buck up, little campers, you are in the warm company of Pluto and Pegasus.

Pluto was given the cold shoulder by a group of 424 representing the International Astronomical Union (IAU). These members, representing less than 5% of the possible voting members, decided to boot Pluto from planetary status in 2006. The voters might be accused of favoritism as, by what some would say is merely coincidence, they were all from the planet earth. Pluto wasn’t even given the chance to defend itself and owning to its small size, it just might have been able to squeeze into a courtroom. Of course, judging by the rebuttals, the voters also did not include any grade school kids (who wrote in by the truckloads to defend the former 9th planet) and the Illinois legislature (who finding some free time before impeaching their governor) passed a resolution proclaiming that Pluto IS a planet … whenever it is overhead in Illinois airspace.

The Pluto controversy is still so hot that an Oliver Stone film might be in the works but a worse case of showing a judgment error came in 1928 when the IAU (yes, those same renegades that decided the fate of Pluto) determined the official boundaries of the constellations.

Before this period, constellation bounders were hazy. Astronomers of the early 20th century still mimicked the early Babylonians and Greeks when pointing out constellations: Orion was more or less in that area of the sky and Taurus was the patch of stars to its upper left. Where one constellation stopped and another started was anything but a definite science. Some astronomers had their own ideas of which stars went with each constellation only to differ from another group. As telescopes were growing bigger and we could see dimmer stars, there was a real need to definitively state the borders of the constellations so astronomers could talk to each other quickly regarding where in the sky they were looking.

The IAU was convened in 1928 to address this issue. Unfortunately, they made a choice which makes things awkward today (at least to astronomers who give public nights). They decided not to pick a fight with the Pluto controversy for the simple reason that Pluto hadn’t been discovered in 1928. But they still found trouble. Currently flying high overhead in the nighttime skies is the great group of stars representing the winged horse Pegasus. Pegasus is a constellation that benefits from two things: a lack of bright stars in the neighboring constellations (which would easily distract any attention from its dim stars) and an easy-to-see giant grouping of four (give or take) of its stars into what looks almost like a perfect square. Since this group is not a full constellation, it is termed an asterism just like its more famous sibling the Big Dipper (actually only a part of Ursa Major).

The asterism in Pegasus is quaintly called the Great Square of Pegasus. Before 1928, all four stars making up the Great Square of Pegasus were considered to be in Pegasus (all seems right so far with the thinking). Then the IAU stamped out the boundary lines for the constellations. The problem came from the fact that one of the celestial neighbors to Pegasus was Andromeda. They appeared together as their mythology is interwoven and they also share another trait: they have few bright stars. The four stars of the Great Square are brighter than any in Andromeda. But the crime starts in that one corner of the Great Square was “shared” with Andromeda: the star named Alpheratz. When the ancient Greeks laid down drawings over the stars depicting the constellation, Alpheratz was the eye of Andromeda. In Pegasus, Alpheratz was of similar brilliance to the other three stars that made up the Great Square and Andromeda was “allowed” to share its star to complete the Great Square. But, watch out, here comes the IAU. When they drew the “state line” separating Pegasus and Andromeda, who should get Alpheratz? I doubt the tension was so thick that arguments broke out but it’s fun to imagine this all the same (especially to make any movies about it more exciting). Regardless of the debate, it was decided that a winged horse could survive with only three of its four brightest stars whereas Andromeda needed her “bright eye”. Forever since, the Great Square of Pegasus has had “one hoof” that officially belongs to Andromeda.

It could have gone worse for Pegasus. During the 1928 meeting, the IAU also set the official list of constellations. There were many that didn’t make the grade. These were cut from the list leaving only the 88 official ones recognized today remained. It seems that great ideas work until people get involved (especially when these people are small in number and are welding votes). In the balance are the fates of things such as the “demolished” constellation of Felis the Cat and the Olympic rejections of the world such as Chicago.

What else is out there:

Jupiter is high in the east at sunset

Oct 8th: at dawn, Mercury passes within a full moon’s width of Saturn (as seen from our vantage point) and Venus hangs higher up in the morning twilight sky

Midnight: The Pleiades star cluster in Taurus is rising in the east