Gosh, Pluto!

Just once you think you’ve got the world figured out, some scientist geek comes along and turns it upside down.

For the past 41 years of my relatively-insignificant existence, it’s been drilled into my head that there are 9 planets: Mercury, Venus, The Big Blue Marble, Mars, Saturn, Jupiter, Uranus (snicker!), Neptune, and Pluto. 9 planets, 7 continents, 50 states. Simple enough, right?

Well, today’s news comes along and screws up everything.

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Dinky Pluto Loses its Status as Planet

PRAGUE, Czech Republic - Pluto, beloved by some as a cosmic underdog but scorned by astronomers who considered it too dinky and distant, was unceremoniously stripped of its status as a planet Thursday. The International Astronomical Union, dramatically reversing course just a week after floating the idea of reaffirming Pluto's planethood and adding three new planets to Earth's neighborhood, downgraded the ninth rock from the sun in historic new galactic guidelines.

Pluto, a planet since 1930, got the boot because it didn't meet the new rules, which say a planet not only must orbit the sun and be large enough to assume a nearly round shape, but must "clear the neighborhood around its orbit." That disqualifies Pluto, whose oblong orbit overlaps Neptune's, downsizing the solar system to eight planets from the traditional nine.

But the scientists at the conference showed a soft side, waving plush toys of the Walt Disney character Pluto the dog — and insisting that Pluto's spirit will live on in the exciting discoveries yet to come.

"The word 'planet' and the idea of planets can be emotional because they're something we learn as children," said Richard Binzel, a professor of planetary science at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, who helped hammer out the new definition.

The decision by the IAU, the official arbiter of heavenly objects, restricts membership in the elite cosmic club to the eight classical planets: Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune.

Pluto and objects like it will be known as "dwarf planets," which raised some thorny questions about semantics: If a raincoat is still a coat, and a cell phone is still a phone, why isn't a dwarf planet still a planet?

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Now, doesn’t that just throw a monkey wrench into everything you know?

Still, my biggest concern is the status of this guy:

Fortunately, my good buddy Pluto the dog is still around, as the press release proudly tells us.

Walt Disney Co. spokesman Donn Walker said "Pluto is taking this news in stride, and we have no reason to believe he might bite an astronomer."

And the people at Disney prove that they still have a good sense of humor, especially about Pluto’s demotion to dwarf planet size:

"Although we think it's Dopey that Pluto has been downgraded to a dwarf planet, which has made some people Grumpy and others just Sleepy, we are not Bashful in saying we would be Happy if Disney's Pluto would join us as an eighth dwarf. We think this is just what the Doc ordered and is nothing to Sneeze at."

Hardy har har. There’s nothing funnier than Snow White puns.

So Pluto is out, and Xena and her galactic pals may be in. As long as it doesn’t muck up my trip to Walt Disney World in December, I suppose it’ll be okay. (I don’t want to accidentally take a wrong turn on Space Mountain; that’s all I’m sayin’.)

Still, I may need to go back to second grade and get this all straightened out.