Who Killed the Plutons?

[caddyman]

It seems that those of us who take even the vaguest of interests in these things were a little too fast off the mark. A little previous as it were, to use the vernacular.

Yesterday we lived in a solar system of nine planets, with high hopes of expanding it EU-like, to twelve. Not so. Another report from Auntie, picking up on that noted by your favourite correspondent¹ on 16 August tells us that we have in fact lost one. As of now, there are only eight planets. Pluto has been booted out of the club, and its extended family has not been admitted. So, no Pluto and no Plutons, either.

In fact, the name Pluton for Pluto-like bodies seems to have been abandoned, too. They are now Trans-Neptunians!²

And still no jokes about the Van Halen Belt!

¹That would be Me, oaf!
²Which isn't even a little rocky number that cross dresses as a gas giant, so no fun to be had there, either.

Comments

[pauln.livejournal.com]

If The Admiral took his nose out of certain rags and glanced at a wider range of reportage, he might have noticed today's leader in theManchester Guardian entitled In praise of... Plutons, which goes some way to explaining the change in nomenclature.

[caddyman.livejournal.com]

One is always grateful for the alternative view of the world, but The Manky Grauniad is hardly reportage, Old Boy.

[jadeent.livejournal.com]

I am greatly saddened by Pluto's demotion. It would so much more cool if they kept Pluto as the ninth planet and upgraded 2003 UB313, aka Xena, to the status of the tenth planet. We could have then called it Planet X.

Our Solar System would have been much cooler for the introduction of a Planet X.

eh?

[bluesman.livejournal.com]

Planet X? Most excellent!

The actual existence of such a planet would instantly explain the origin of several very weird/annoying near-mutants with whom I must, unfortunately, share office space.

[cowjam.livejournal.com]

The trouble with all creation event theories is that they are dangerously close to being religious beliefs.

[cowjam.livejournal.com]

I've just started reading Bill Bryson's a brief history of nearly everything. Interestingly he mentions pluto (as a planet, obviously) and also plutons, saying they are also known as Trans Neptunion Objects.

Still, "All science is either physics or stamp collecting."<sup>1



1</sup> Ernest Rutherford