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Hate Mail From Third Graders

By Susan K. Lewis

Posted 01.01.10

NOVA

"It's not easy being a public enemy," writes Neil deGrasse Tyson in his book The Pluto Files . When Neil's Hayden Planetarium grouped Pluto not among the planets but rather with icy comets in the Kuiper Belt, he heard from thousands of outraged Pluto defenders. Here, peruse letters schoolkids sent Neil and see how their tone shifted as the public came to accept Pluto's fall from planethood.

Launch Interactive Printable Version See what some outraged but loving kids had to say to astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson about "demoting" Pluto.

Note: The correspondence in this slide show originally appeared in The Pluto Files (Norton, 2009).