Pluto loses status as a planet

[Tucker]

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 has been considered a planet since its discovery in 1930 by the American Clyde Tombaugh.

The ninth planet will now effectively be airbrushed out of school and university textbooks.

The decision was made at a meeting of the International Astronomical Union (IAU) in Prague. The astronomers voted by raising their yellow ballot papers for a count.

"The eight planets are Mercury, Earth, Venus, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune," said the IAU resolution, which was passed following a week of stormy debate.

read it all here news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/5282440.stm

[MiTHRANDiR]

What about the 'new' planet they discovered some time ago (could be a year or something), the one that comes after pluto.. Hmm

[Redsox]

this is good i was rooting for it to be striped of its title

[Emily]

lol, Redsox!

I really don't care. But why did we ever call it a planet in the first place?

woah. So what does that make Pluto now?

[lostintoronto]

i think they have created a new category called "plutons" which do not have the same gravitational pull as the classic planets which essentially means they are not big enough to have a gravity which allows them to move elliptically or rotate in its own axis
so pluto , cheron (which was initially thought to b a pluto moon but is now considered a twin planet) , and xena are no t classically planets.. but seriously its just a matter of classifications.. im sure it wil change in a couple of years when we start discovering larger extrasolar planets. ( i think they already have:))

[Zoso the Rock God]

poor pluto.

[RaMa]

dharmainfinity said:

woah. So what does that make Pluto now?

I guess just a dog .

[Zoso the Rock God]

lol

[Redsox]

mlb.mlb.com/NASApp/mlb/news/article.jsp?ymd=20060824&content_id=1627022&vkey=news_mlb&fext=.jsp&c_id=mlb

they had it running on mlb ticker and at 1st i had no idea who pluto was then i got it.

[Steve]

why do people take the time to vote on whether or not to keep Pluto as a planet instead of finding a friggin cure for AIDS or something?!?!?!?!

[PspGuy]

Arn't they already looking for a cure for AIDs. So why would they be voting on it

[Steve]

I'm sure they could use all the smart people they could get, if they weren't all voting on pluto's status as a planet

[blackfonzie]

spaceman15426 said:

why do people take the time to vote on whether or not to keep Pluto as a planet instead of finding a friggin cure for AIDS or something?!?!?!?!

Because astronomers don't make vaccines.

[大杂烩]

cool one less planet to memorize. or you might have to start memorizing the 8 planets AND pluto