Mars vs Pluto
Every so often I have a look at the cool things that Google Labs are playing with. One of their current toys is Google Trends; a tool for comparing the number of searches for terms. For fun, I thought I would compare the planet Mars with dwarf planet Pluto. Considering the amount of press Pluto has had recently, I was pleasantly surprised to find that Mars is a much more popular search term. This is totally justified by the number of missions (e.g. Mars Express/Beagle 2, Spirit, Opportunity, MRO and Phoenix) over the past three years which have produced great science and many cool images. The only times Pluto beats Mars are following the launch of New Horizons and the planet definition decision.
Google Trends graph showing relative search popularity of the terms "Mars" and "Pluto". A, B and C are the start of the Mars Rovers mission, D and E are some of the early results, and F is when Mars Express announced the discovery of a possible frozen sea. CREDIT: Google Trends.
Comments: Mars vs Pluto
I'm sure this was a fun exercise, but my guess is that for people interested in the solar system, planetary exploration, etc., it's not an either/or. A friend of mine is a NASA JPL Solar System Ambassador, which involves doing a lot of public outreach about the solar system. Most of his lectures are on the Mars rovers, and he has published both articles and photos about them. I attended some of his lectures and give him a lot of credit--some of the public in attendance do not even know that Mars is further from the sun than Earth. At the same time, he is also a strong advocate of Pluto's planet status (planet, not dwarf planet) and is working with Dr. Alan Stern on promoting a citizens' petition to the IAU asking that the Pluto demotion be overturned. The good thing in many cases is that some people start out interested in one particular subject but then learn more about astronomy and broaden their interests significantly.
I do have one issue with Google Sky though. They do not have Pluto in their program at all, which I see as a great disservice. Both Pluto and Eris should be added in the next version.
Posted by Laurel Kornfeld on Saturday 22nd Sep 2007 (16:45 UTC)
Laurel, I'm not suggesting this is either/or. I'm just saying that I'm glad that Mars is getting more attention considering the great science to come out of the recent missions. That means that people are actively going to find out about the results from Mars for themselves.
There aren't many results coming from Pluto right now. However, I hope that Pluto gets proper attention when New Horizons reaches it and we get a lot more interesting images and data back. That will be well deserved attention.
Please stop putting me into an 'against Pluto' box.
Posted by Stuart on Saturday 22nd Sep 2007 (19:44 UTC)
I'm not putting you into an "against Pluto" box; I just happen to be a big Pluto fan. What I would really like to see is a comparison of searches for Mars, Pluto or any planet versus Britney Spears, Lindsay Lohan or OJ Simpson. The best case scenario is any one of the planets beat these so-called stars hands down. I'm thinking you would agree.
Posted by Laurel Kornfeld on Saturday 22nd Sep 2007 (23:02 UTC)
I do. Unfortunately, it isn't too likely to happen.
Posted by Stuart on Sunday 23rd Sep 2007 (10:26 UTC)
Hi Stuart
Did you literally just compare the two words "mars" and "pluto"? (which is what it looks like from the graph above).
I'm just thinking that "mars" would get hits due to people searching for it as relating to the chocolate bar (at least here in the UK), and also the Roman god of war (aswell as numerous other meanings as per the wikipedia disambiguation page).
The same applies to Pluto of course, people searching for Pluto the disney character, of the Roman god of the Underworld etc.
I guess it's difficult/impossible to differentiate such terms - until we see the emergence of the semantic web...
Anyway, interesting article as it got people thinking.
Thanks, Pidge
Posted by Pidge on Monday 01st Oct 2007 (09:57 UTC)
Pidge, you are correct that other usage would 'pollute' the results (although would many people search for Mars Bars online?) so the baseline levels may be incorrect. However, the spikes in the time series certainly match up with times when both planets were in the news.
Posted by Stuart on Monday 01st Oct 2007 (10:14 UTC)
Goofy is better than Mars and it shouldn't have been demoted as a planet just because of size, distance away from the sun and also because of all of the other mini ateroids the atsronomers had found.
Posted by John Wilson on Monday 19th Mar 2012 (16:20 UTC)
you guys suck
Posted by amina on Tuesday 12th Jun 2012 (17:53 UTC)