Pluto: I coulda been somebody

Quote Of The Day

"In physical science a first essential step in the direction of learning any subject is to find principles of numerical reckoning and practicable methods for measuring some quality connected with it. I often say that when you can measure what you are speaking about and express it in numbers you know something about it; but when you cannot measure it, when you cannot express it in numbers, your knowledge is of a meagre and unsatisfactory kind: it may be the beginning of knowledge, but you have scarcely, in your thoughts, advanced to the stage of science, whatever the matter may be. "

--William Thomson, Lord Kelvin

Tue, 08/29/2006 - 20:38

2500 activist scientists in Prague considered expanding the league of planets from the present 9 to 12 by adding Ceres, Charon (Pluto's moon) and Xena (officially 2003 UB313). Neo-con scientists waited for the last day of the meeting when all but 424 of the original 2700 had left and spang their counter attack, ousting the little bitty bits and Pluto too, reducing the solar system to 8.

Alas poor Pluto, we hardly knew yee.

The demotion of Pluto to non-planet has been called "embarrassing" by the lead scientist on Nasa's New Horizons mission, Nasa's first mission to the 9th and last (aka 'late') 'planet'. It is too late now to recall the mission, but one wonders if a non-planet deserves the same budget as a planet. Maybe we'll go ahead and get the spacecraft there, but not bother to take pictures since it is so much less interesting now.

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