Comments on: Goodbye Pluto

By: Patrick O

Patrick O — Sun, 27 Aug 2006 21:37:10 +0000

Forget that. Pluto will always be a planet to me. They should have grandfathered Pluto in as a planet.

By: Randy Tayler

Randy Tayler — Sat, 26 Aug 2006 15:09:56 +0000

Textbook publishers are gonna cry all the way to the bank.

By: Walrus

Walrus — Fri, 25 Aug 2006 15:16:38 +0000

OK, I’ve read the article now. I didn’t realize that he had been asked to add to the work with the discovery of Pluto. Learn something new every day.

By: Walrus

Walrus — Fri, 25 Aug 2006 15:14:10 +0000

Glen, Holst wrote The Planets in 1918. Pluto was discovered in 1930. That alert person made a mistake. Holst didn’t refuse Pluto, he just didn’t know about it.

By: Michael Reynolds

Michael Reynolds — Fri, 25 Aug 2006 01:59:34 +0000

Glen:

That was unseemly haste. The body was barely cold. Barely really, really cold.

By: Glen Wishard

Glen Wishard — Fri, 25 Aug 2006 00:08:14 +0000

Geez, some alert person has already updated the wikipedia article for The Planets:

In August 2006 Pluto was stripped of its status as a planet, demoting it to a dwarf planet, and Holst’s original decision was vindicated.

By: Glen Wishard

Glen Wishard — Fri, 25 Aug 2006 00:06:05 +0000

Of course Pluto is not a planet. That’s why Gustav Holst refused to write a movement for it in The Planets suite.

By: Sean Aqui

Sean Aqui — Thu, 24 Aug 2006 19:12:14 +0000

12 planets was a proposal by the IAU leadership; they expected it to pass. Instead that proposal was defeated and this one adopted.

As a friend of mine pointed out, this could really mess up astrology.

And with one fewer planet, planetary alignments are easier to achieve — meaning more Doomsdays.

By: Eural

Eural — Thu, 24 Aug 2006 18:18:28 +0000

I’m confused – earlier this week (?) didn’t some international astronomy group meeting in Austria declare that there were now 12 planets according to their new definition? Now there’s only 8? Can someone clarify please?

By: DosPeros

DosPeros — Thu, 24 Aug 2006 16:28:21 +0000

I was going to try to say something witty, but I can think of anything to top Reynolds. That is funny.

By: Michael Reynolds

Michael Reynolds — Thu, 24 Aug 2006 16:00:12 +0000

Great. There goes the resale value of that Plutonian time share I bought on e-bay.