12 Planets? • 08.24.06
This is interesting. Supposedly astronomers have discovered three new celestial bodies, named Ceres, Charon and Xena, which means there are now actually 12 planets in the solar system - and the possibility for many more. It’s the first genuine discovery since Pluto 75 years ago.
What seems strange, though, is all this fuss over the definitions of planets. Now there are going to be eight “classical planets”, and everything else is going to be named after Pluto - plutons. All this because a lot of people consider Pluto to be too small and distant to really be considered a planet… something these new “plutons” seem to confirm, as all three are actually larger than Pluto!
Now they’re going to have to rewrite textbooks to include the planets, plutons and new definitions… and there’s a chance that many more of these plutons exist, so in a few years they might have to do it all over again! Surely it’d make more sense to say there are only 8 planets, discounting Pluto and these new plutons, which barely register compared to the other planets anyway… guess they like to do things the hard way, though.
Dean on 
