http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20060824/ap_on_sc/planet_mutiny_9
WTF? Can they do that?
[i]"For now, membership will be restricted to the eight “classical” planets in the solar system: Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune.
Much-maligned Pluto doesn’t make the grade under the new rules for a planet: “a celestial body that is in orbit around the sun, has sufficient mass for its self-gravity to overcome rigid body forces so that it assumes a … nearly round shape, and has cleared the neighborhood around its orbit.”
Pluto is automatically disqualified because its oblong orbit overlaps with Neptune’s."[/i]
Damn. Chalk that up as one more thing I learned in grade school that the next generations won’t be learning. Feels kinda weird now. What about the pneumonic for remembering the planets “My Very Excited Mother Just Served Us Nine Pies.” More useless knowledge, I guess.