Demotion of Pluto as a planet

[cino hilliard]

>From: "William Rex Marshall" <w.r.marshall at actrix.co.nz>
>To: "Gene Smith" <genewardsmith at gmail.com>
>CC: <seqfan at ext.jussieu.fr>
>Subject: Re: Demotion of Pluto as a planet
>Date: Sat, 26 Aug 2006 10:08:23 +1200
>
>From: "Gene Smith" <genewardsmith at gmail.com>
>
> > > From: cino hilliard <hillcino368 at hotmail.com>
> > >
> > > Hi,
> > >
> > > The celestial object we call Pluto was demoted from its planet status
> > > today.
> >
> >
> > If you read the so-called "definition" of a dwarf planet, it's not 
>clear. As
> > best I can tell, Jupiter is now a dwarf planet (because of the Trojan
> > asteroids) and probably Pluto (because of the plutinos.) But Xena is a
> > full-fledged planet!
>
>Not according to the IAU: 
>http://www.iau2006.org/mirror/www.iau.org/iau0603/index.html
>
>See also Phil Plait's comments on the Bad Astronomy Blog: 
>http://www.badastronomy.com/bablog/2006/08/24/breaking-news-pluto-not-a-planet/
>
>Further criticism of the IAU's attempted definitions: 
>http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/5283956.stm

Interesting stuff. A 4% sample of the IAU deciding this change is not 
comforting to me.

Rest assured there will be some US congressman or groups that will start 
proceedings to make an
ammendment to the US constitution to retain Pluto's status as a Planet.

Actually, the planet sequences will remain dynamic in view of discoveries of 
other planets in other
solar systems. The problem, of course, will be getting believable data for 
these distant objects.