Pluto loses status as a planet

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Pluto loses status as a planet
Astronomers meeting in the Czech capital have voted to strip Pluto of its status as a planet.

About 2,500 experts were in Prague for the International Astronomical Union's (IAU) general assembly.

Astronomers rejected a proposal that would have retained Pluto as a planet and brought three other objects into the cosmic club.

Pluto was discovered in 1930 by the American Clyde Tombaugh at the Lowell Observatory in Arizona.

The vote at the International Astronomical Union (IAU) general assembly, effectively means the ninth planet will now be airbrushed out of school and university textbooks.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/5282440.stm

Did you see that Episode of Horizon, saying about the status of Pluto and Xena (an alleged planet at first)? It was very interesting.

I had thought that pluto would be saved, on the basis it is the only planet to have been discovered by an american.

it shouldn't have been a planet in the first place

About bloody time... I mean our moon is bigger than Pluto... In other news, lawyers reresenting Pluto have promised to apeal the decision since no one wants to visit an asteroid.

They said its a dwarf planet. I dont get it.

Dragging the Solar system back to the 1920's Yay!


Bring back the canals on Mars, that's what I say.
If Tombaugh is out of fashion, reinstate Lowell!


" 'The chances of anything coming from Mars are a million-to-one,' he said.."

Am I the only one who has wondered, what will Mickey Mouse name his dog now? Saturn?

violet yoshi, I think Pluto was named after the Greek God of the underworld, as perhaps "Cerberus" was already taken.

It sucks that Pluto ain't a planet anymore....

Pluto gets an upgrade as a dwarf planet, and there are more out in space that need more data that in future could be add the list of known dwarf planets.
Here's the mirror site of the iau press release
http://www.iau2006.org/mirror/www.iau.o ... index.html
And the online version of the official newspaper of the IAU General Assembly 2006 in pdf and good stuff
http://astro.cas.cz/nuncius/

Oh I never thought of that. Although there was a Mickey Mouse cartoon on House of Mouse, where Mickey tried to get back into Minnie's house to return a gift he gave her without her knowing. So he went up to the door in costume, and introduced himself as someone else. Then Minnie says, "I know that's you Mickey, and Pluto!" Then Mickey says, "Uh, Pluto..no that's my dog Saturn!" Which supports that Pluto was named after the planet, since the joke is a planet joke.

In school, they taught us an acronym to remember the names of the 9 planets
My
Very
Excellent
Mother
Just
Served
Us
Nine
Pizzas
Since now there's no 'pizza' I wonder what they will call it?

My Very Erotic Mistress Just Showed Up Nude.

But possibly not in the younger science classes.

They should have left it alone.

"They should have left it alone"

But then they would have had to let all sorts of other riff-raff in.

LoL!