Pluto Options

[Mommy]

Astonomers are getting on my nerves. The other day they were arguing over whether some of our solar system's moons should be called planets instead. In fact, I read an article the other day where they were wanting to change the defintion of a planet and this new definition would mean that someday our moon would be classified as a planet. I dont know whether or not they decided on that new definition but it basically stated that any object orbiting a planet whose center of gravity falls outside the planet it is orbiting will be considered a planet. Because the moon is moving farther and farther away from the earth, it would one day become a planet under that definition. Now, they voted yesterday that Pluto isnt a planet

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20060824/ap_on_sc/planet_mutiny

[Spectatrix]

FYI, it's not the center of gravity of the moon itself that would make it a planet. It's the center of gravity of the combined moon-Earth system.

They've been arguing about Pluto for decades, though. While there's news on this now, the debate really isn't anything new.