So now instead of three new planets for kids to learn, there’s one less. Pluto wasn’t all that great a planet, anyway. It wasn’t even the planet farthest out for most of the last quarter-century!
After a tumultuous week of clashing over the essence of the cosmos, the International Astronomical Union stripped Pluto of the planetary status it has held since its discovery in 1930. The new definition of what is — and isn’t — a planet fills a centuries-old black hole for scientists who have labored since Copernicus without one.
The only real question is, does it really matter? It’s still out there, no matter what we call it.
I just saw this.
“The verb “to Pluto,” meaning to demote or devalue something as the former planet was, has been voted the American Dialect Society’s 2006 Word of the Year.”
I bet it doesn’t catch on.