August 24, 2006 was the day that the International Astronomical Union (IAU) voted to demote Pluto from “planet” to “dwarf planet,” and the scientist who incited that change is coming to Clemson to speak about it.

Mike Brown, the Rosenberg Professor of Planetary Astronomy at the California Institute of Technology, will be visiting Clemson University on Feb. 21 as part of the TIGERS ADVANCE Distinguished Speaker Series. Brown’s lecture, “Planet 9 from Outer Space,” will chronicle how his team’s discoveries led to the demotion of Pluto and the search for a new Planet 9.

Brown’s lecture will describe his team’s latest evidence for the existence of Planet 9 and how the demotion of Pluto helped make way for such a study.