Bill Text: IL SR0046 | 2009-2010 | 96th General Assembly | Introduced
Bill Title: Declares March 13, 2009 as Pluto Day in the State of Illinois.
Sponsorship: Partisan Bill (Republican 1)
Status: (Passed) 2009-02-26 - Resolution Adopted [SR0046 Detail]
Download: Illinois-2009-SR0046-Introduced.html
|
|
|||||||
| |||||||
| |||||||
| 1 | SENATE RESOLUTION
| ||||||
| 2 | WHEREAS, Clyde Tombaugh, discoverer of the planet Pluto, | ||||||
| 3 | was born on a farm near the Illinois community of Streator; and
| ||||||
| 4 | WHEREAS, Dr. Tombaugh served as a researcher at the | ||||||
| 5 | prestigious Lowell Observatory in Flagstaff, Arizona; and
| ||||||
| 6 | WHEREAS, Dr. Tombaugh first detected the presence of Pluto | ||||||
| 7 | in 1930; and
| ||||||
| 8 | WHEREAS, Dr. Tombaugh is so far the only Illinoisan and | ||||||
| 9 | only American to ever discover a planet; and
| ||||||
| 10 | WHEREAS, For more than 75 years, Pluto was considered the | ||||||
| 11 | ninth planet of the Solar System; and
| ||||||
| 12 | WHEREAS, A spacecraft called New Horizons was launched in | ||||||
| 13 | January 2006 to explore Pluto in the year 2015; and
| ||||||
| 14 | WHEREAS, Pluto has three moons: Charon, Nix and Hydra; and
| ||||||
| 15 | WHEREAS, Pluto's average orbit is more than three billion | ||||||
| 16 | miles from the sun; and
| ||||||
| 17 | WHEREAS, Pluto was unfairly downgraded to a "dwarf" planet | ||||||
| |||||||
| |||||||
| 1 | in a vote in which only 4 percent of the International | ||||||
| 2 | Astronomical Union's 10,000 scientists participated; and
| ||||||
| 3 | WHEREAS, Many respected astronomers believe Pluto's full | ||||||
| 4 | planetary status should be restored; therefore, be it
| ||||||
| 5 | RESOLVED, BY THE SENATE OF THE NINETY-SIXTH GENERAL | ||||||
| 6 | ASSEMBLY OF THE STATE OF ILLINOIS, that as Pluto passes | ||||||
| 7 | overhead through Illinois' night skies, that it be | ||||||
| 8 | reestablished with full planetary status, and that March 13, | ||||||
| 9 | 2009 be declared "Pluto Day" in the State of Illinois in honor | ||||||
| 10 | of the date its discovery was announced in 1930.
| ||||||
