I am not talking politics tonight because everything to be said is being said by better bloggers than me . I could just "borrow" from them and fill space , but I see too much of that already .
THIS is the subject for tonight .
From The Australian News comes an article on Pluto , it's planetary status , and the naming of several new "Plutons" .
Pluto was discovered almost 75 years ago and named a planet then . We have all grown up knowing Pluto , but now , if the Planet Definition Commitee decides to change things , Pluto will no longer be a planet at all . This is odd to me . I guess my mind just doesn't want to adjust to redefinition .
"The new draft defnition states that two conditions must be satisfied for an object to be called a "planet": it must orbit a star and it must be big enough for its own gravity to pull it into a spherical shape."
"The committee's resolution - presented yesterday at the International Astronomical Union meeting in the Czech capital of Prague - will be voted on next week by the members of the 9000-strong IAU. Australia has 200 members of the IAU, who will help decide if the new definitions stick.
If it's passed, original committee member Chris Tinney - an astronomer with the Anglo-Australian Observatory in Sydney - will be delighted.
"I will be deliriously happy when I no longer have to spend a moment of my time worrying about the definition of the word 'planet'," Dr Tinney said last year when The Australian flagged the upcoming resolution." said Dr. Tinney .
I always thought Pluto fit that description .
UPDATE _ 8-26-2006
Now they have decided ! Pluto is a "drawf planet" , because it has not cleared its area of orbit . In other words it has not succeeded in gobbling up other planetoids in its path .
Here is the newsfrom the International Astronomic Union (IAU).
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