babbling blue

Big news! Pluto is no longer a planet. Forget what you learned in elementary school, as our solar system now has only 8 planets. Can you name them? Can you name them in order? (I could name them, but probably not in order.)

Anyway, astronomers got together to argue and fight and came up with a new definition of what constitutes a planet.

a celestial body that is in orbit around the sun, has sufficient mass for its self-gravity to overcome rigid body forces so that it assumes a … nearly round shape, and has cleared the neighborhood around its orbit.

Pluto doesn’t make the cut because it has an oblong orbit that overlaps with Neptune’s. But Pluto does still have a status…

Instead, it will be reclassified in a new category of “dwarf planets,” similar to what long have been termed “minor planets.” The definition also lays out a third class of lesser objects that orbit the sun - “small solar system bodies,” a term that will apply to numerous asteroids, comets and other natural satellites.

In case you don’t think astronomers have a sense of humor, I submit this as proof that you’re wrong:

Although astronomers applauded after the vote, Jocelyn Bell Burnell - a specialist in neutron stars from Northern Ireland who oversaw the proceedings - urged those who might be “quite disappointed” to look on the bright side.

“It could be argued that we are creating an umbrella called ‘planet’ under which the dwarf planets exist,” she said, drawing laughter by waving a stuffed Pluto of Walt Disney fame beneath a real umbrella.

(full story)