PRAGUE, Aug 24: Pluto was stripped of its status as a planet on Thursday when astronomers from around the world redefined it as a “dwarf planet”, leaving just eight major planets in the solar system.
With one vote, toys and models of the solar system became instantly obsolete, forcing teachers and publishers to scramble to update textbooks and lessons used in classrooms for decades.
“Pluto is dead,” Mike Brown of the California Institute of Technology bluntly told reporters on a teleconference.
Discovered in 1930 by the American Clyde Tombaugh, Pluto has traditionally been considered the ninth planet, farthest from the sun in the solar system.
However, the definition of a planet approved after a heated debate among 2,500 scientists from the International Astronomical Union (IAU) meeting in Prague drew a clear distinction between Pluto and the other eight planets.
The need to define what it is a planet was driven by technological advances enabling astronomers to look further into space and to measure more precisely the size of celestial bodies.
OBLONG ORBIT: Brown added impetus to the decades-old debate on the definition of a planet when he discovered UB313 in 2003. Xena, as it is nicknamed, is larger than Pluto, instantly creating a buzz over whether a new planet had been discovered.—Reuters
PRAGUE, Aug 24: Pluto was stripped of its status as a planet on Thursday when astronomers from around the world redefined it as a “dwarf planet”, leaving just eight major planets in the solar system.
