This week a number of scientists, astronomers really, gathered in Prague to discuss all things space. One of the significant outcomes was the fact that our solar system has lost a planet. Yes thats right, that faithful planet Pluto hanging out there in space some three billion miles from the sun has lost its planet status. Pluto is now known, in a mocking sort of way, as the dwarf-planet Pluto. The reason? Well basically astronomy has developed to the point where many other bodies similar to pluto have been discovered. I guess there is some sort of quota applied to chunks of gas, rock and ice that orbit the sun, so a new definition was created in order to keep the number of planets to a single digit.

I found all of this interesting for two reasons. One, the conference took place in Prague which is kind of cool to see the city I live in take center stage for such a event. And the second reason is that I just finished a book a few weeks ago that also discussed the topic of pluto being a planet which had actually mentioned that astronomers were debating if Pluto was actually a planet at all. Pluto been thought to be the largest object within the Kuiper belt but how can we be sure that it is the largest? In fact recently UB313 was found in the same Kuiper belt and it is larger then Pluto.

All of this points to the fact that we know very little about our world and the universe that surrounds us. To illustrate this, my son has a hanging model of the solar system in his bedroom (yes I am trying to influence his inner geek). The model is as you would expect, nine planets (obviously manufactured prior to this week). The model is like most in the it represents all the planes in relative proxmimity to each other. When in fact the planets are not even close to being equidistant from each other. I quote a line from the Bryson book, "On a diagram of the solar system to scale, with the Earth reduced to about the diameter of a pea, Jupiter would be over 300 meters away and Pluto would be two and a half kilometers distant (and about the size of a bacterium, so you wouldn't be able to see it anyway)."

So what? It would be stupid to show the solar system to scale and worse if you, like Steven Wright, had a full scale map of it. I believe that most folks think that they understand our solar system quite well. In fact we don't. This week I believe proves that point. If you think Pluto was the farthest thing in our solar system from the sun you would be wrong. Pluto, along with all kinds of other floating stuff sits in the Kuiper belt which indeed is far from the sun. However Pluto is only 1/50,000 of the way to the edge of our solar system. Well inside the Oort cloud that extends to the edge of our solar system. So if we are just now figuring out there there are other things out and around Pluto then who knows what else is out there. Maybe there is a HUGE planet out there well beyond Pluto. There could be, but we have yet to see it as the light from the sun just does not carry that far.

So in case you are out with your telescope at night and see a new object out there in space, here is the new definition of what it takes for an object in our solar system to be called a planet:

• Must orbit the sun
• Must be big enough of a mass such that the objects own gravity is strong enough to compact it into a ball
• Must have cleared the neighborhood around its orbit - not surrounded by other objects of similar size and attributes (This is where poor Pluto lost its planet status)

Happy planet hunting...

I have a new job. In fact I was lucky and got two new jobs. I have been the chief technologist for our Services organization for the past couple of years. With the changes of the organization, the joining of our global sales and services team, I have moved to become the chief technologist for Sun's global sales and services division. Equal good news is that Jon Greaves has replaced me as the chief technologist for services. But wait, theres more. I also have the job as the VP of our Europe, Middle East and Africa Systems Engineering Organization.

My job title is now in the running as the longest on record. In short hand it looks like this: CTO GSS & VP EMEA SE. All acronyms. In long form it could be represented as: Distinguished Engineer, Chief Technology Officer - Global Sales and Services & Vice President, Europe, Middle East and Africa Systems Engineering. What a gallimaufry of words.

In this job I get to work with some pretty interesting folks. First I form one leg of what we have been calling the Geek Troika. The Troika is made of up Hal Stern, Jim Baty and myself. For some reason I picture the three of us geeks pulling a cart with Jonathan at the reins. Why the Troika? Well all three of us are in the Global Sales and Services organization. Hal as the VP of Global Systems Engineering, Jim as the GSS Chief Architect and myself as described above. All three of us also report into Greg Papadopoulos' CTO staff. Since the three of us (the troika) spend so much time working together we kind of end up being able to end each others thoughts. I know kind of scary.

The great thing about this job is that I get to spend a lot more time with the killer technical folks we have in EMEA. I have always been impressed with the talent we have in the field organizations at Sun, now I get to be closer to and work with some of the best.