Tell me it's not true. In the age of athletes being suspended for illegal steroid and drug use, we now learn that Pluto is not a planet - it has been an imposter all these years.
The resolution of a planet definition, the first of its kind in the astronomical history, was adopted today after days of fierce debate and effectively kicked Pluto out of the planet group in the solar system. According to the new rules for a planet adopted at an International Astronomical Union meeting in Prague, Pluto doesn't make the grade for a planet: "a celestial body that is in orbit around the sun, has sufficient mass for its self-gravity to overcome rigid body forces so that it assumes a ... nearly round shape, and has cleared the neighborhood around its orbit."
Pluto is automatically disqualified because its oblong orbit overlaps with Neptune's. Instead, it was defined as a "dwarf planet", but no longer a planet.
"We just gonna kick Pluto out? Who speaks for Pluto? Who's gonna take up for Pluto?,"says Dutch Cummings, Coca-Cola Space Science Center.
So now there are eight. Is nothing sacred? Who will be next? Will Mars be relegated to a cheap candy bar? Will Mercury and Saturn be reclassified as automobiles? Will Earth become extinct? Who speaks for Pluto?
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