Pluto is no longer a planet.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20060825/ap_on_sc/planet_mutiny

Yeah, science sure is interesting...Granted, I wonder what liife-forms on distant planets would concider earth to be...

 

I'm indifferent to the whole thing, but I had been following this via npr. Why the hell was it considered a planet to begin with( I really should just look this up)?

Now any future scifi stories involving our solar system will just look foolish.

Think about it though, when we are old, we can say to our grandchildren "back in my day we had 9 planets".

 

Sort of ironic, since people back before the 1930's only knew of 8 planets. Granted, it is only the Earth's own classification of it, and I am sure there are many who will argue about this for centuries to come.

 

With all the budget cuts schools are getting hit with, they can only afford to teach children about eight planets. So, Pluto had to go.

 

You would think that would cost more, because books are outdated now because of it, and teachers are going to have to modify tests and lesson plans.

 

Imagine, somewhere some poor teacher is going to have to deal with snotty know-it-alls because she slips up and says there are 9 planets.

I just cut the string that was holding Pluto in my model solar system. Poor little guy.

 

That's easy!

"Harmless"

 

I'm sorry, that's not right.

"Mostly Harmless."

 

last time i checked earth was a double star

 

nice than we can recylce the old star models and books from that time =)

 

hmmm perhaps Pluto is maybe not a "planet" anymore. But you are forgetting now Pluto is a dwarf planet now , so in theory we still have 9 planets. And if we count Ceres in as a planet, then we really have at least 10 planets, but since Ceres is an asteroid (planetoid to be exact) , then Pluto is just a dwarf planet.

 

There are other planets???!?!?

I was raised believing they were just paintings and jewels hanging from one of the celestial spheres.

 

hmm one of those jewels must have fallen beyond the edge of our earth disc:shrug:

 

I can only wonder what it means for Disney's Pluto? :-(

 

The girl who had Pluto named after her is probably rolling in her grave. (unless she's still alive, that is.)

 

I think it's stupid to reclasify an entire planet because of such a technicality (It has an oblong rotation that crosses over Neptunes).

As far as i'm concerned a planet is a massive (diameter of 1,000 km or greater) object that while not being a star itself, rotates around one. It is sphericle in shape and spins allowing for a gravitational pull which may or may not produce natural satelites (moons).