With all due respect to discoverer Clyde Tombaugh, screw Pluto. After furious debate, the International Astronomers Union stripped Pluto of its status as a planet this week, and I couldn’t agree more. First, you don’t want to go up against the International Astronomers Union, or you run the risk of a wildcat astronomers’ strike, and then who’s going to man the telescopes?
And second, Pluto’s just not a planet. Take its biggest moon, Charon. It isn’t even really a moon; they orbit each other around a centre of mass that lies between the two of them, so Charon and Pluto are really a binary planet, if either of them counts as a planet at all, which they don’t. Pluto’s too small, it’s mainly ice, and it’s got that elliptical orbit that occasionally brings it closer to the sun than Neptune. It’s basically a big comet. Speaking of ice, it’s like the furious debate over how Clark Gillies was elected to the Hockey Hall of Fame and whether he really ought to have made the cut after all. Pluto is the Clark Gillies of planets.
Except now it’s been deservedly booted out and stripped of its special status, so really, maybe it’s the Alan Eagleson. The IAU has declared Pluto a dwarf planet (as opposed to a “real” planet), along with other the asteroid Ceres and other trans-Neptunian objects such as 2003 UB313 (not to be confused with reggae band UB40). That’s cool. Throw in Charon and Sedna and Louie Anderson too, if you like. I don’t care.
But while we’re clearing things up, let’s get a couple of other issues straight. First, there are four Great Lakes, not five. Lake Huron and Michigan are the same lake, hydrologically speaking. They’re at the same level and are connected by a strait wider than most lakes are long. From now on, it’s Lake Huron/Michigan. Sorry, USA, but you no longer have one Great Lake entirely within your borders; in fact, you never did. And don’t even get me started on the people who want to make Lake Champlain a Great Lake. It’s a good lake, but not a Great Lake.
And second, it’s high time we kick indigo out of the rainbow. It’s not a primary or secondary colour. It’s just a tertiary colour, like red-orange or blue-green. Newton only included it because he wanted to round the number of colours up to seven, because that was considered a magic number, there being seven notes in the musical scale, seven days in a week, and seven known planets. Except now we know that there are eight planets. Certainly not nine, I’ll tell you that.
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8 Responses to “Pluto: Stupid planet for dumb jerks”
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I like this if for no other reason than it sets a precedent that just because we’ve done something wrong in the past we don’t need to live with it forever. That happens far too often. So often, in fact, that I can’t think of a single example right now.
Actually, lets say… The Imperial System of Weights and Measures, the QWERTY keyboard… What else?
I was thinking about that. Here’s another: do Europe and Asia really need to be separate continents? They seem pretty well connected. They’re really only considered separate because Europeans drew the maps and said so. From now on, it’s just one continent: Eurasia. If Europe really insists, it can be a subcontinent, like India or Asia Minor.
Because I said so!
That’s the best reason for doing anything. Especially if I’m the one doing the saying.
Just last night I was telling people that Pluto was basically a big comet, and they said I was an idiot. Well FUCK them!
I too was pleased that an international team from all the countries in the world who have access to telescope technology could come together to right a wrong that has been 76 years in the making. Some of my gas station co-workers thought it mean-spirited to downgrade Pluto. But I then explained to them, we’re not losing a planet, we’re gaining a Kuiper Belt Object- and drew them a diagram.
Man, what a wedgie I got.
hey dude, how come you didn’t manage to get a joke in about Uranus?
I think the severely wedgied A Truman North sort of went ahead and made that joke.
Addendum: TV and comic-book writer Mark Evanier has a recurring feature on his blog listing “released jokes”, old gags that have been worn out and lost their comedic potential through overuse and thus need to be retired. Guess what joke was released today?
pluto fuckin rocke bitch i love it it has to stay a planet stupid strominers or wit ever!