Who Cares

Based on the attention this story is getting, you would think that there is little else going on in the world (of course, we know this to be untrue). A bunch of scientists gathered in Prague to re-define exactly what constitutes a planet, and under their new rules, our solar system loses one member--Pluto.

This seems to be a highly contested issue, to which I reply, "who cares?" Personally, I didn't care about Pluto when it was a "planet," so why would I care now that it is not a planet? It is still the same frozen orb of rock and gases that it always was--it just has a different classification. Considering that Pluto is actually smaller in size than Earth's moon, I actually found myself wondering how it was ever classified as a planet in the first place.

OK, perhaps I care a little bit.

As it turns out, Pluto should never have been called a planet, even under the now out-dated system. When the planet was first spotted from Earth, it was initially thought that it was considerably larger in size than it actually is. Thus it was called a planet, and so when scientists were finally able to accurately define Pluto's size, it was too late. Until now. Under the new guidelines, scientists can now pretend that the mistake never happened in the first place.

On a side note, I imagine textbook publishers are REALLY happy right now, seeing as how they stand to make a shitload of money off of all the new "updated" textbooks they will be selling to replace the old "outdated" editions.

Well there you have it--Pluto is not a planet. It never really was a planet. Do you care? Probably not. It would seem that a bunch of people do however--I'm just yet to encounter a single one of them.