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New Planet Gets Astronomers All Worked Up
A giant space arrow points to the spanking new planet.
The
discovery of a tenth planet in our solar system has gotten scientists
all agitated about the meaning of the word planet. The whateveritis,
temporarily dubbed as 2003 UB313, is one
and a half times the size of Pluto, and therein lies the crux of the crisis.
The argument goes back to the 1990's when a number of astronomers stopped
calling Pluto a planet. Mike Brown of Caltech's discovery
team is one such astronomer who apparently has no life.
"Some
astronomers have rather desperately attempted to concoct solutions which
keep Pluto a planet, but none of these are at all satisfactory, as they also
require calling dozens of other objects planets. While people are perhaps
prepared to go from nine to 10 planets when something previously unknown is
discovered, it seems unlikely that many people would be happy if astronomers
suddenly said, 'we just decided, in fact, that there are 23 planets, and we
decided to let you know right now.'"
FGAQ did a quick man on the
street poll, which was unable to find a single person who would be happy if
astronomers were to suddenly say "Hey dude, there are 23 planets now". Our
poll is inconclusive, however, as we were also unable to find anyone who
would be made unhappy by this statement.
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