Pluto stripped of planetary status

PRAGUE – Pluto was stripped of its status as a planet on Thursday when astronomers from around the world redefined it as a “dwarf planet”, leaving just eight major planets in the solar system.

With one vote, toys and models of the solar system became instantly obsolete, forcing teachers and publishers to scramble to update textbooks and lessons used in classrooms for decades. “Pluto is dead,” Mike Brown of the California Institute of Technology bluntly told reporters on a teleconference.Discovered in 1930, the icy rock of Pluto has traditionally been considered the ninth planet, farthest from the sun in the solar system.However, the definition of a planet, approved after a heated debate among 2 500 scientists from the International Astronomical Union (IAU) meeting in Prague, drew a clear distinction between Pluto and the other eight planets.The need to define what is a planet was driven by technological advances enabling astronomers to look further into space and measure more precisely the size of celestial bodies.The scientists agreed that, to be called a planet, a celestial body must be in orbit around a star while not itself being a star.It must be large enough in mass for its own gravity to pull it into a nearly spherical shape and have cleared the neighbourhood around its orbit.Pluto was disqualified because its oblong orbit overlaps Neptune’s.Alan Stern of the Southwest Research Institute in Boulder, Colorado, overseer of science investigations on Nasa’s New Horizons mission to Pluto, called the reclassification rash and illogical.”I think people are going to consider Pluto a planet regardless,” he said.Nampa-Reuters”Pluto is dead,” Mike Brown of the California Institute of Technology bluntly told reporters on a teleconference.Discovered in 1930, the icy rock of Pluto has traditionally been considered the ninth planet, farthest from the sun in the solar system.However, the definition of a planet, approved after a heated debate among 2 500 scientists from the International Astronomical Union (IAU) meeting in Prague, drew a clear distinction between Pluto and the other eight planets.The need to define what is a planet was driven by technological advances enabling astronomers to look further into space and measure more precisely the size of celestial bodies.The scientists agreed that, to be called a planet, a celestial body must be in orbit around a star while not itself being a star.It must be large enough in mass for its own gravity to pull it into a nearly spherical shape and have cleared the neighbourhood around its orbit.Pluto was disqualified because its oblong orbit overlaps Neptune’s.Alan Stern of the Southwest Research Institute in Boulder, Colorado, overseer of science investigations on Nasa’s New Horizons mission to Pluto, called the reclassification rash and illogical.”I think people are going to consider Pluto a planet regardless,” he said.Nampa-Reuters