Acclaimed astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson described the backlash and hate mail he received — particularly from kids — after declaring Pluto wasn’t a planet.
The director of the Hayden Planetarium in New York and the host of the hit Fox show “Cosmos” told a packed audience at Cannes Lions that he has been unfairly blamed for killing off Pluto after he demoted it from being the ninth planet in our solar system to a mere dwarf planet in an exhibit.
He said, “I got blamed for killing Pluto, but I was just an accessory to it. I drove the getaway car for it … Pluto, I am blamed for it, but I want to alert you that it is still not a planet.”
Delivering the Ogilvy & Mather Inspire lecture in his socks on Thursday after taking off his shoes, he continued, “For Pluto lovers, I would say … just get over it.
“In New York, we have put Pluto with its icy brethren in the outer solar system, and I got blamed for this, and the angriest people out there were elementary school children. I have a file cabinet of angry letters.”
He read out one angry letter from a child which reads, “What do you call Pluto if it is not a planet anymore? If you make it a planet again then all the science books will be right. Do people live on Pluto? If there are people who live there they won’t exist … Please write back, but not in cursive because I can’t read in cursive.”
Tyson added, “That’s what I was dealing with for six years after we opened our exhibit.”
Tyson was introduced by Ogilvy’s worldwide chief creative officer, Tham Khai Meng, who listed his many accomplishments, including, “Time magazine’s as one of 2014’s most influential people in the world … And People magazine voted him sexiest astrophysicist alive. Imagine the competition for that one, right?
“Perhaps the biggest achievement he will be remembered for is a paradox. Not for discovering a planet, but getting rid of one, in 2001 when visitors to the Hayden Planetarium found that there were eight planets instead of the usual nine. Pluto had gone. For a while he was the Grinch that stole Christmas.”