It is now official. Pluto is no longer a planet. It is a dwarf planet, but not what we have come to know and love this adorable piece of rock as being.

This is too upsetting. What am I going to do? Worship Uranus?

Meredith:

I was gonna make an offhand remark about that...but Little Miss Mercury will be nice to you today.

Dwarf planet? Bad enough that chunk of ice was called Pluto; now it's been demoted to Dwarf Planet status. Are there six other Dwarf Planets? Does "The Mouse" have our planets in their wicked little clutches too?

It's early for me--think I'll go get breakfast now.

Luv 'n hugs,

Mina Sakura
"Almost-Angel, T-Girl Genius, and Ultra-Flirt"

And after all that hard work Pluto did for the Solar System, too, just to be sacked like that. Ingrates.

By the way, I have a great Mickey Mouse joke.

I'm upset too.....just think Disney will have to remake all of those cartoons. No-one is telling me how the pronounce that new interloper which I thought was the 10th planet. Is the "Ch" pronounce as "K" or a "ch" in church? Who named this new planet anyhow....why couldn't the new planet be named "Pluto?" I don't know if I can take all this abuse...I may stop looking out the window at night....the moon is probably next to be downgraded to a rock in space.

Charon is pronounced with a "K" and not a "ch" as in church.
Charon was the ferryman in greek mythology that transported souls over the river Styx and into the realm of the dead, Hades.

Oh and by the way, Pluto was the only planet discovered by US scientists but I guess that achievment isn't worth much anymore.



// Hanna

I had my breakfast there! Like the song said!

It was not just the orbit and size - it was also about the geological makeup, but perhaps more importantly, the fact that it's just one object amongst many similar objects (about 800 at the last count) in the middle of the Kuiper Belt - and pluto wasn't even the biggest of them. More are being discovered all the time. It's orbit is less of an orbit, and more of a beaded bracelet around the solar system.

A key part of the definition is that a planet must have cleared it's area (meaning that if it's just another rock in a belt of rocks, it's not a planet.)

Well, that was a pretty pathetic first post in I don't know how long... Hi people!

Rhia,

I haven't been up on the news lately, just too darn busy all the time. So, thank you for post.

It wasn't "pathetic" at all. I found it quite interesting.

Thanks for the info.

Hugs!

Kari

I'm with Rhia on this one, it was just a puffed-up asteroid in the Kuiper belt and it's good that they corrected their mistake. Next we'll be moaning about not making up names for everything in the Oort cloud!

Okay, that last remark was just an excuse to say Oort. Oort Oort Oort.