[trumandogz]

"Pluto could not be reached for comment."

[Blagden Alley]

And no refernce to "dwarf tossing"? Has Free Republic gone PC?

Heaven forfend!

[yawningotter]

Maybe the astronomers were music lovers who wanted to keep Gustav Holst's most famous composition accurate.

[Bubba_Leroy]

Instead, it will be reclassified in a new category of "dwarf planets," similar to what long have been termed "minor planets."

The term "dwarf" is pejorative and offensive and therefore politically incorrect.

They should call them "differently sized" planets.

[jim_trent]

Has Pluto hired a lawyer yet?

[jpl]

Oh well, so ends our system's Plutonic relationship.

[calljack]

Well then just what the hell is My Very Educated Mother supposed to Just Serve Up Nine of???
HUH???
WHAT??
TELL ME WHAT!!!

[WoofDog123]

"It was unclear how Pluto's demotion might affect the mission of NASA's New Horizons spacecraft, which earlier this year began a 9 1/2-year journey to the oddball object to unearth more of its secrets."

moronic statement. it is on its way and will do the studies it was sent to do. i seriously doubt the course it is on allows any modification, even if it is capable of it.

[CougarGA7]

Somebody needs to go get these scientists a date.

If they had just one they would so not care about this.

[Paul Ross]

Artist's rendition of surface view from Pluto

To get an idea of comparative dimensions:

That being the case, I can see some arguing Pluto hardly deserves to be a planet, but the fact is that Pluto is now going to be classified as a planet...just a "Dwarf Planet". I am a bit surprised, as I expected it be re-classified as a "Binary Planet." I.e.,:

Under proposed International Astronomical Union definitions, two planets that orbit each other around a barycenter (or center of mass) between them are a binary planet. Those same definitions would expand the "family" of planets to include Charon, promoting Pluto's large companion from moon to planet and securing the pair's status as the first and (so far) only binary planet in the solar system.

"Binary planet" is a term often used to describe any pair of worlds that are similar in mass. Each orbits the other around a gravitational balance point that is between the two - a location called the center of mass. When one object has a much bigger mass and the objects are far apart then the center of mass is close to the center of the bigger object and the bigger object hardly moves. This is the case of the Earth orbiting the Sun - the Sun's moves only 0.0003 of its diameter due to the gravity of the Earth in its yearly orbit. In the case of Pluto and Charon, separated by 17 Pluto radii, the ratio of their masses is 8:1 so that the center of mass is outside Pluto.

[Santa Fe_Conservative]

When I have great-grand kids and I tell them Pluto use to be a planet, I wonder what they'll say?

[quark]

"It was unclear how Pluto's demotion might affect the mission of NASA's New Horizons spacecraft, which earlier this year began a 9 1/2-year journey to the oddball object to unearth more of its secrets."

What NASA will discover upon arrival:

[Redcloak]

It make sense. If Pluto got to be a planet, then why not Goofy? And once Goofy's a planet, where does it stop?!

[ViLaLuz]

Sigh. Scientists are so subjective.

[ThomasThomas]

Why am I thinking ego trip. How many of these astronomers will now get paid to rewrite text books?

[KevinDavis]

[garbageseeker]

Pluto will always be the ninth planet.

[SunkenCiv]

Michael Brown had a page on his university website saying (a few years ago) that the then-recent discovery of a large (but not as large as Pluto) body should not be considered the discovery of a planet. But when UB313 was announced (and after all the controversy over who actually discovered it died down), he changed his mind. He seemed to change it again when the seven-member panel unveiled its recommendations. Soooo, I guess being a turncoat has cost him a planet, and FWIW, a fan (me).

[Central Scrutiniser]

Pluto isn't a planet, its a KBO, and it joins thousands of others.

If Pluto is a planet, then so is Ceres and Xena and perhaps Sedna and Quaror.

[SunkenCiv]

"The Ecliptic is the plane of the Earth's orbit. Most of the planetary orbits are close to this plane. Pluto's orbit is inclined at an angle of 17.14 degrees to the ecliptic plane - the largest deviation of any planet." -- http://pluto.jhuapl.edu/science/glossary.html

http://bobscrafts.com/bobstuff/planets.htm

Mercury -- "Its orbit is inclined to the plane of the ecliptic by 7 degrees (The plane of the ecliptic is the plane of the Earth's orbit. All planets orbit in planes that are nearly the same as that of the Earth.)."

Venus -- "Its orbit is inclined at an angle of 3.4 degrees."

Mars -- "The orbit's eccentricity is 0.093 at an inclination of 1.9 degrees."

Jupiter -- "The orbit has an eccentricity of 0.048 at an inclination of 1.3 degrees."

Saturn -- "Its orbit has an eccentricity of 0.056 with an inclination of 2.5 degrees."

Uranus -- "The orbit has an eccentricity of 0.047 and an inclination of 0.8 degrees."

Neptune -- "It has an eccentricity of 0.009 and an inclination of 1.8 degrees."