[mike777]

Last night when I went to bed there were 9 planets. This morning there are only eight.

A whole planet gone overnight!

That is a real conspiracy!!

If they can get rid of a planet while we sleep then they sure can get rid of any of us.

[luke warm]

even paranoiacs have enemies

[Gerben42]

Hehe, before you know it they will steal the Moon.

[hotShot]

Just the same old story, some people tried to make a deal with astronomic profit.
Gready as they were they tried to get 3 planets more, and they ended loosing one.
When will they learn that going for astronomic profit, is never sound business and that you will always end with a loss.

[whereagles]

Pluto was relegated because its orbit was not "clean". I think "clean" means in case of overlap with other planets' orbits', one of them gets relegated. Pluto overlaps with Neptune and got the shaft

[nickf]

Will mickey mouse still call his dog Pluto now?

And what about goofy? what he is? a dog? a cow?

All this reminds me of the time when Pluto played Uranus at football. All the Plutonians cheered Up Pluto! Up Pluto!

nickf
sydney

[lalislol]

Well Mike, we have lost one, but are supposed to gain more. Pluto was a dog of a planet anyway (sorry about that ), but we shall gain Ceres, which I hope they don't bring too close. And in the far reaches, ah real beauties coming up!...

Xena is there...has a number, but I prefer a different vision, one more easily remembered...and check the opportuniy to name other heavenly bodies. The list I'm preparing to submit includes Pamela (for a bright planet) and Tyra (for a dusky one).

I shall really enjoy dreaming up more...but to whom should I make this submission?

[Al_U_Card]

What else can you expect from a plutocracy....they are probably selling the solar system short or maybe trying to increase planetary demand.....anyway what's next, planetesimals? (fun-size as the ad execs like to say...;-)

[Winstonm]

Pluto was just reclassified as a "dwarf" planet - so I think a new name is in order, as well: Sneezy, Dopey, Sleepy, Doc......

Isn't it rather crass to call it a dwarf planet - I would think "vertically-challenged" planet would be more proper.

[Rain]

Instead of unplaneting pluto they should just reclassify all the other asteroids into planets.

Then my horoscope would be so much cooler;

Rising sign in Moon, Sleeping sign in Pluto, plus lots of other signs everywhere.

[keylime]

Just another example of junk science. I am absolutely disgusted that I hold an astronomy concentration now, after seeing this pitiful excuse of reformist history tabled.

[DrTodd13]

Should we still be calling the earth flat just because for the vast amount of human history humans have believed it to be that way? But seriously, Ceres was labelled a planet from 1800 to around 1850 after which we learned it was but one of a class of similar objects and was reclassified as such. I don't understand how what they've done can be called a "reform" when previously there has never been a definition of planet. Call them delinquent for failing to come up with a definition prior to this point but how can a scientific field trying to define concretely for the first time one of the major things that they study be called either "junk" or "reformist?"

[Al_U_Card]

Rain, on Aug 25 2006, 11:10 PM, said:

Instead of unplaneting pluto they should just reclassify all the other asteroids into planets.

Then my horoscope would be so much cooler;

Rising sign in Moon, Sleeping sign in Pluto, plus lots of other signs everywhere.

Look, no matter what their motivation or rationale, the only reason for planets and names and categories is for ASTROLOGY. Up to it's discovery, there were NO influences ascribed to Pluto. These influences were just lumped into the general "how will the rest of the universe affect me today" general predictions. In the total view of humanity and it's need for guidance from beyond, Pluto is a poor second cousin who won't matter a whit if it is there or not.

Call me traditional but I like 8 planets, the sun and the moon. It's all we really need to know how to deal with the future so wtp????

[hotShot]

I have just learned that following the new definition it's not sure that we live on a "planet".
This is because planets need to have a clean solar orbit.( It's clean because planets have absorbed all objects in their path.
Just a few weeks ago the earth passed a big amount of objects leading to spectacular fallings stars. But there are millions of objects left in this small asteroid belt, so earth does not have cleaned it's solar orbit (yet).
So by the new definition of planet, earth is no planet.

So prepare yourself, one morning you might wake up and the planet you live on, will be gone.

[the saint]

You are all missing the big point. All those acronyms we were taught as school to remember the order. They just don't work now:

Many Volcanoes Erupt Mulberry Jam Sandwiches Under Normal.... NORMAL WHAT?

The education system will be in a state of total collapse (not that it isn't already you understand).

[bid_em_up]

nickf, on Aug 25 2006, 05:03 AM, said:

All this reminds me of the time when Pluto played Uranus at football. All the Plutonians cheered, Up Pluto! Up Pluto!

And what did the other team cheer?

In the meantime, Disney has evidently welcomed Pluto as an 8th dwarf:

BURBANK, Calif., Aug. 24 /PRNewswire/ -- In reaction to news today that
Pluto was demoted to the status of "dwarf planet," the Seven Dwarfs issued
their own short statement:

"Although we think it's DOPEY that Pluto has been downgraded to a dwarf
planet, which has made some people GRUMPY and others just SLEEPY, we are
not BASHFUL in saying we would be HAPPY if Disney's Pluto would join us as
an eighth dwarf. We think this is just what the DOC ordered and is nothing
to SNEEZE at."

As Mickey Mouse's faithful companion, Pluto made his debut in 1930 --
the same year that scientists discovered what they believed was a ninth
planet.

Said a white-gloved, yellow-shoed source close to Disney's top dog, "I
think the whole thing is goofy. Pluto has never been interested in
astronomy before, other than maybe an occasional howl at the moon."

[helene_t]

This is the essentialist's fallacy - thinking that the categories into which we humans organize things say anything about their real nature.

As someone else put it: calling my cat "car" wont make it loose its legs and grow wheels instead.

Let them call Pluto a planet, a comet, an asteroide, a dwarf planet, or a strawberry cheescake. Or let them assign it to different categories depending on the purpose of the discussion. I can't get decided about it. Pluto remains what it always was, even before it was discovered. Now if they found out something new about its orbit, its origin, or it composition, that would be interesting.

[sceptic]

with the demise of Pluto, does this mean that my horoscopes and all others before it, can't be right?

[helene_t]

If it matters to an astrologist whether Pluto is classified as a planet or as something else, then astrology is even more ridicolous than I thought it was.

[Al_U_Card]

sceptic, on Sep 1 2006, 07:24 AM, said:

with the demise of Pluto, does this mean that my horoscopes and all others before it, can't be right?

It means that they lumped the Plutonic influence with that of Charon and Xena and Ceres......so it's all good if somewhat retrograde (old astrology joke...lol)