Darn you Pluto!
So it turns out Pluto is a liar. Everyone thought it was a planet, but in reality, it was just a big (but not too big) rock. I think it was decided that Pluto is not a planet because:
1) Its too small
2) Its orbit goes around Neptune’s, which I guess is a no-no for planets. We don’t want any kissing planets. They must only orbit around the sun or its a no go for planethood.
This makes me mad. Why couldn’t the nice little scientists keep everything nice and orderly, just like it was before. Next thing you know, they’re going to tell us that there’s another planet past the ex-planet, Pluto… doh! They have discovered another planet past Pluto, and it looks like its bigger!
Now I’m going to have to go through all my space books and chuck out anything that mentions Pluto. That should be easy. Luckily, some of the librarians had a discussion about it, and in the words of one of the librarians, “unless it has a chewy caramel center”, he’s still counting it as a planet. I think that’s a lot more reasonable than tossing all our books on space. Fhew, that would have been a lot more work than I was ready for.
Your job is now to go to the library and read books about our ex-planet planet, Pluto! If it has a chewy caramel center, it should make mouths happy!
August 31st, 2006 at 5:29 pm
In the many discussions I’ve had with folks on this issue, I’ve come to realize that, like any other scientific thing, this is still really totally up for debate. This group of scientists decided that Pluto’s not a planet, but, really, there’s still a lot of debate in their little community, not to mention astronomers who aren’t members of that organization.
So not all hope is lost!
I want to take a look at some of our newer books on Pluto, because I bet they mention this debate, since it’s been around for a while. But I guess we’ll have to be on the lookout for updated books…. SIGH.