And so Pluto is no longer a planet. No longer will fourth graders find themselves thinking in science, “Forget putting a human on Mars — putting a person on Pluto would be the really impressive thing.” Out in the far edge of the universe, Pluto was invisible, ugly, and neglected. And incredibly cool. The very things that makes made Pluto the coolest planet in the system led to its ultimate demise. It’s funky, indecisive orbit means that for periods of several years, it was actually not the planet furthest from the sun. It’s lack of sphericalness made it the ugly duckling planet. This is the most destructive thing humans have ever done, for we’ve destroyed a planet. With a few hours of deliberation, we took a perfectly good orbiting body and relegated it to the same status as Grumpy, Sleepy, Happy, and the rest of the gang. We now have dwarf planets to go with our dwarf stars. The pen might not be mightier than the sword, but obviously, a scientific committee is. At least it keeps its name. Let’s hope the same is not true for Xena…
I have made my desire known to the IAU that the definition of planet be narrow enough not to include such objects as Pluto and “Xena.” If Pluto was “destroyed” it was to save the real planets from becoming as insignificant as Pluto.
I have also informed them to think of a real name for Earth’s moor other than “Moon.”