Much ado about Pluto

In photo: Pluto


Pluto's Planetary Status Looks Doomed
Thursday, August 24, 2006

AP

Leading astronomers are bitterly divided over new galactic guidelines that for the first time would define what is and isn't a planet. The debate all but dooms a proposal being put to a vote Thursday to expand the solar system to 12 planets from the traditional nine.

Caught yet again in the crossfire is puny Pluto, scorned by many as a poser that could be demoted as a dwarf — slightly shrinking Earth's neighborhood instead.

Opponents "smell blood, and I think they're going to get it," Alan Boss, an astrophysicist at the Carnegie Institution in Washington, D.C., said on the eve of a vote by members of the International Astronomical Union.

Leaders of the group, the official arbiter of heavenly bodies, caused a sensation last week by proposing that Pluto's largest moon and two other objects officially be designated as planets. They suggested that Pluto and the three newcomers be the first of a new class of planet dubbed "plutons." Rest of story here.

For me anyways...Pluto will always be the ninth and final planet in our solar system.