By Mark Bialczak

LPL Communications Specialist

Are you the type to gaze up at the night sky and think hard about what’s up there?

Damian Allis is, too.

The NASA Solar System Ambassador and Director of CNY Observers spends much time pondering, plotting and even pontificating about the what and why of what lies beyond our atmosphere.

Allis will visit the Liverpool Public Library’s Carman Community Room from 7 to 8:30 p.m. Thursday, April 19, to hold the program “Planet 9 from Outer Space.”

He’ll discuss the history, politics and physics of Pluto, the sphere that lies past Neptune. Yes, we used to call it the ninth planet in our solar system. But in 2006, its status was changed to dwarf planet.

Astronomer Allis will talk about why, including the fact that modern telescopes have discovered numerous dwarf planets out in the Kuiper Belt, the region of our solar system for which Pluto is now the most famous member. By determining the orbits of these distant objects, astrophysicists have made the prediction that something much larger in size must be out there.

And if so, it would be large enough to qualify as a true planet.

The session is free.