Slashdot Mirror
Some Demote Pluto To Non-Planet
Ravn0s writes "Pluto, subject of much controversy since it's discovery, has now been demoted from a planet. The Rose Center for Earth and Space, which opened last year at the American Museum of Natural History in New York is now saying that Pluto is not necessarily a planet at all but just a smallish lump of ice. Essentially, Pluto is now a largish comet. Details in this article." Other groups disagree, as the article points out.
He can orbit the sun, he can look like a moon
He can leave the ecliptic from April to June
He'll be just a faint smudge, magnitude twenty-three
He hides in the sky, but he's always a planet to me
Ohhh...a potato-shaped ball...
He can drift where he wants
He's a relic of time
Ohhh...if he's made of pure ice
Or of vapor and dust
It's the same to my mind
If he zooms in near us, would he show us a tail?
Was the Kuiper Belt once the great home whence he sailed?
And if he gets demoted, who'll be next, Mercury?
And the most he can do is cast shadows, it's true
But he's always a planet to me
Jamie McCarthy
Jamie McCarthy
jamie.mccarthy.vg
...is the obvious fact that demoting Pluto to a mere Kuiper Belt object runs the grave risk of offending its namesake, the dread Lord of the Underworld. I have yet to see any respectable scientist propose the obvious solution to this problem: to ameliorate Pluto, several fattened heifers should be slaughered in sacrifice on the steps of the Rose Center. I'm shocked, shocked that these scientists would risk angering the god; the last time someone (namely, Persephone) did so, Demeter plunged the Earth into famine, and ulimately the seasons were split in two.