Saturday, August 26, 2006

if Pluto is not a planet, then could it be a Dwarf?


A few days ago, I wrote that the universe is expanding, that new planets are being added to the solar system...but the winds have changed.

I saw the late-news on tv tonight and was surprised to hear that Pluto has been cast out.

"Astronomers today voted to create the first scientific definition of the word "planet", and Pluto did not make the cut.
In a redefinition of our solar system agreed at a conference of 2,500 astronomers in the Czech capital, Prague, the dinky and remote Pluto was classified as a "dwarf planet".

Under the new guidelines, agreed after a week of sometimes passionate debate, to qualify as a planet a celestial body must have "cleared the neighbourhood around its orbit".

Pluto, which has been widely regarded as a planet since its discovery in 1930, has an oblong orbit that overlaps with Neptune's, so is disqualified full planet status.

The new classification means that the science textbooks will have to be ripped up, as the solar system is now made up of the eight "classical planets", plus a number of dwarf planets. The classical planets are: Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune."

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But don't worry, PLuto, you still have a few friends behind you...

But the Seven Dwarfs are not taking it lying down.

"Although we think it's DOPEY that Pluto has been downgraded to a dwarf planet, which has made some people GRUMPY and others just SLEEPY, we are not BASHFUL in saying we would be HAPPY if Disney's Pluto would join us as an eighth dwarf," they insisted.

"We think this is just what the DOC ordered and is nothing to SNEEZE at."


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