Saturday, June 16, 2007

Pluto demoted again

It's been a bad year for Pluto. First it was demoted from "planet" to "dwarf planet." Now it's not even the biggest dwarf. The dwarf planet Eris, based on observations of the size and orbit of its tiny moon Dysnomia, appears to have about 1.27 times the mass of Pluto.

3 comments:

Ian said...

Poor pluto. The sun isn't even shining on a dog's ass these days. Pun intended.

Ian

Unknown said...

I have a solution to all those crazy people who threaten to blow themselves up over the "demotion" of Pluto to dwarf planet.
Why don't we come up with a better name than "dwarf planets"? We can call them "Plutons".
See? Everybody wins.

Matt Bille said...

Kristian,
I kinda like that. Alas, I have no pull with the IAU. I thought Pluto should have been granted a special exemption based on 80 years it's been referred to as a planet and the common concept of a nine-planet solar system.