Fare thee well, my darling Pluto

[eleneariel]

If Pluto is not, in fact, a planet, then it should not be called such. But darn it, I grew up thinking Pluto was a planet! How can the world change so drastically? *pout*

So if it's not a planet, what is it? And who will think of a new mnemonic?

Comments

[http://users.livejournal.com/_haydee_/]

The mnemonic really is a problem. Esp. because now people are finding all different numbers of planets. (Someone has come up with 32... you'd have to like... write a whole poem to remember the order of those).

[eattheolives.livejournal.com]

Think of those model solar systems third graders will be able to build now! They can fill an entire ROOM!

[clothofdreams.livejournal.com]

"My very eager mother just served us noodles." Yes? No?

[http://users.livejournal.com/_haydee_/]

Brilliant!

[radiantlove.livejournal.com]

*grin* that's great ;-)

[clothofdreams.livejournal.com]

Thanks. :) It could maybe do with a more exotic food, though... hmm...

[radiantlove.livejournal.com]

Indeed... alas, I've "morning brain" and nothing remarkable comes to mind

[radiantlove.livejournal.com]

Heh. Browsing Yahoo News, I came across this one :-)
"Mary's Violet Eyes Make Jack Stare Until Noticed."

[eattheolives.livejournal.com]

Hey, I like that one!

[radiantlove.livejournal.com]

*grin* It makes me smile :-)

[eattheolives.livejournal.com]

Hey, I have a mother like that. Should be easy to remember. =)

[http://users.livejournal.com/patrick___/]

Well, it's a Kuiper belt object. In the far reaches of the solar system, there are thousands of large frozen planet-like objects the size of Pluto or smaller. Pluto is about the closest one, and one of the larger ones, so for years it was the only one we knew about. But over the last couple decades they began finding more and more of them. Some are even larger than Pluto - and they go out for a long long ways.

So the way I see it is basicly we have four different planet-like categories in our solar system. We have four rocky earth-like inner planets (Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars). We have four large gas giant planets (Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune). We have the asteroid belt that's in between the two, and then on the outskirts of the solar system we have the Kuiper belt, with objects like Pluto and Charon in it. It's actually a pretty nice symmetrical solar system when you think about it from that perspective.

By the way, I wouldn't take the recent ruling as final. I have a feeling that this debate will be going for a long time to come. :-)

[eattheolives.livejournal.com]

I'm looking forward to watching how it all plays out. =)