Too Many Planets Numb the Mind - New York Times
The NY Times seems to be taking the position of Neil Degrasse Tyson, head of the Planetarium at the American Museum of Natural History.
When the new planetarium was first unveiled, Pluto was not given a place in the large scale model of the solar system with the other planets. Instead it was lumped with the comet like bodies of the Kuiper belt. That is to say, it was demoted.
Now, with the announcement of a new body beyond Pluto which is larger than our ninth and smallest planet, the Times doesn't want children to count to 10 planets.
"Our own preference is to take a cleaner way out by dropping Pluto from the planetary ranks. Scientists may well discover many more ice balls bigger than Pluto, and it's a safe bet that few in our culture want to memorize the names of 20 or more planets. Far better to downgrade Pluto to the status of an icy sphere that was once mistakenly deemed a planet because we had not yet discovered its compatriots on the dark fringes of the solar system."
Me, I think we can keep Pluto in on the Grandfather Clause, and declare a Planet to be a body large enough that it has a spherical shape due to gravity, that orbits the Sun in the general plane of the solar system. While Pluto itself (nor any asteroids, nor any Kuiper belt objects) would qualify, let Pluto remain, rather than demote it.
Posted by Jvstin at August 3, 2005 1:10 PM