Posted on Categories Discover Magazine
Astronomers can sometimes be literal to a fault. We like to call things as we see them. For example, if it’s red and it’s huge: “Red Giant.� White and small: “White Dwarf.� Massive explosion: “Big Bang.� Dark and sucks everything in: “Black Hole.� Most of the time, classifying objects this way works fine—either it’s new, or it’s something we already know of. But sometimes, as with Pluto, we make new observations that force us to question the name, reassess the object, and identify it differe