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Mike Brown

Author profile

born

June 05, 1965 in The United States

website

http://www.gps.caltech.edu/~mbrown/

genre

Nonfiction, History, Cooking, Food & Wine

About this author

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Youth and education

Brown is a Huntsville, Alabama native and graduated from Virgil I. Grissom High School in 1983. Brown earned his A.B. in physics from Princeton University in 1987, where he was a member of the Princeton Tower Club. He did his graduate studies at the University of California, Berkeley where he earned an M.Sc. in astronomy in 1990 and a Ph.D. in astronomy in 1994.

Discoveries

Brown is well-known in the scientific community for his surveys for distant objects orbiting the Sun. His team has discovered many trans-Neptunian objects (TNOs). Particularly notable are Eris, the only TNO discovered that is more massive than Pluto,[2] and is one of a number of dwarf planets in the Solar System; 90377 Sedna, a planetoid thought to be th...more Youth and education

Brown is a Huntsville, Alabama native and graduated from Virgil I. Grissom High School in 1983. Brown earned his A.B. in physics from Princeton University in 1987, where he was a member of the Princeton Tower Club. He did his graduate studies at the University of California, Berkeley where he earned an M.Sc. in astronomy in 1990 and a Ph.D. in astronomy in 1994.

Discoveries

Brown is well-known in the scientific community for his surveys for distant objects orbiting the Sun. His team has discovered many trans-Neptunian objects (TNOs). Particularly notable are Eris, the only TNO discovered that is more massive than Pluto,[2] and is one of a number of dwarf planets in the Solar System; 90377 Sedna, a planetoid thought to be the first observed body belonging to the inner Öpik-Oort cloud; and 90482 Orcus.

Brown's team famously named Eris and its moon Dysnomia with the informal names Xena and Gabrielle, respectively, after the two main characters of Xena: Warrior Princess.

Haumea controversy

Brown and his team also had been observing the dwarf planet Haumea for approximately six months before its announced discovery by José Luis Ortiz Moreno and colleagues from the Sierra Nevada Observatory in Spain. Brown originally indicated his support for Ortiz's team being given credit for the discovery of Haumea. However, further investigation showed that a website containing archives of where Brown's team's telescopes had been pointed while tracking Haumea had been accessed eight times in the three days preceding Ortiz's announcement, by computers with IP addresses that were traced back to the website of the Instituto de Astrofísica de Andalucía (CSIC, Institute of Astrophysics of Andalusia), where Ortiz works, and to e-mail messages sent by Ortiz and his student. These website accesses came a week after Brown had published an abstract for an upcoming conference talk at which he had planned to announce the discovery of Haumea; the abstract referred to Haumea by a code that was the same code used in the online telescope logs; and the Andalusia computers had accessed the logs containing that code directly, as would be the case after an Internet search, without going through the home page or other pages of the archives.[5] When asked about this online activity, Ortiz responded with an email to Brown that suggested Brown was at fault for "hiding objects," and said that "the only reason why we are now exchanging e-mail is because you did not report your object."[6] Brown says that this statement by Ortiz contradicts the accepted scientific practice of analyzing one's research until one is satisfied that it is accurate, then submitting it to peer review prior to any public announcement. However, the MPC only needs precise enough orbit determination on the object in order to provide discovery credit, and Ortiz et al. not only provided the orbit, but "precovery" images of the body in 1957 plates.

The then director of the IAA, José Carlos del Toro, distanced himself from Ortiz, insisting that its researchers have "sole responsibility" for themselves. Brown petitioned the International Astronomical Union to credit his team rather than Ortiz as the discoverers of Haumea. However, no evidence of impropriety was found, and Ortiz et al. were given sole credit for the discovery. Nonetheless, the IAU did accept Brown's suggested name of Haumea, which fit the names of Haumea's two moons, rather than Ortiz's Ataecina.
[edit] Honors, awards and accolades

Brown was named one of Time's 100 Influential People of 2006.[7] In 2007 he received Caltech's annual Feynman Prize, Caltech's most prestigious teaching honor. Asteroid 11714 Mikebrown, discovered on 28 April 1998, was named in his honor.(less)

18 posts
Mike Brown's Blog

Mike Brown isn't a Goodreads Author (yet), but they do have a blog, so here are some recent posts imported from their feed.

And the answer is....

Almost a year ago, Eris – the, uh, most massive known dwarf planet -- passed directly in front of an otherwise anonymous star, momentarily causing the star to disappear, as seen from the earth. By carefully measuring the length of time that the star disappeared, astronomers made a very precise measurement of the size of Eris. I care about the size of Eris for many different reasons, but the mos... read more »

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Published on October 26, 2011 22:12 • 15 views

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combine editions
Books by Mike Brown

Average rating: 4.04 · 1,231 ratings · 385 reviews · 31 distinct works

	How I Killed Pluto and Why It Had It Coming 4.04 avg rating — 1,177 ratings — published 2010 — 6 editions	My rating:
	The 1940s Look: Recreating the Fashions, Hair Styles and Make-Up of the Second World War 4.50 avg rating — 4 ratings — published 2006	My rating:
	The Wartime House: Home Life in Wartime Britain 1939-1945 by Mike Brown, Carol Harris 3.67 avg rating — 6 ratings — published 2000 — 3 editions	My rating:
	Looking At...Dilophosaurus: A Dinosaur from the Jurassic Period (New Dinosaur Collection) 5.00 avg rating — 2 ratings — published 1994	My rating:
	Looking At Ankylosaurus: A Dinosaur From The Cretaceous Period 5.00 avg rating — 2 ratings	My rating:
	Looking At Allosaurus: A Dinosaur From The Jurassic Period 5.00 avg rating — 2 ratings	My rating:
	Looking At... Deinonychus: A Dinosaur from the Cretaceous Period 5.00 avg rating — 2 ratings — published 1994	My rating:
	Looking At... Gallimimus: A Dinosaur from the Cretaceous Period by Mike Brown, Tony Gibbons (Illustrator) 5.00 avg rating — 2 ratings — published 1994	My rating:
	A Child's War: Britain's Children in the Second World War 4.50 avg rating — 2 ratings — published 2000 — 4 editions	My rating:
	Christmas on the Home Front 1939-1945 4.00 avg rating — 2 ratings — published 2005	My rating:

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Quotes by Mike Brown

“Pluto is dead.”
― Mike Brown, How I Killed Pluto and Why It Had It Coming

tags: planets , pluto

2 people liked it

“There is nothing particularly special about that location of the centre of mass. If you were to find yourself at the precise spot that is the centre of mass of the earth-moon system, the only thing unusual that you would notice is that there would be one thousand miles of rock on top of your head.
Pluto is only about twice the size of Charon, so if you put Pluto and Charon on the cosmic seesaw you would find that the balance point is a little bit outside Pluto, rather than inside it. Again, there is nothing particularly special going on there. If you were to find yourself at that precise spot, you would only notice that you were very, very cold and could no longer breathe.”
― Mike Brown, How I Killed Pluto and Why It Had It Coming

tags: astronomy , centre-of-mass , earth , outer-space , planets , pluto

1 person liked it

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