Everything you know about the Solar System may change

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Yes, that’s right. It seems that astronomers are discussing how to define Pluto. Is it a planet or not? It seems that some think Pluto and the newly found Xena (not the official name yet) are just wanna-be planets compared to all the rest.

Astronomers are still struggling on how to define Pluto, as it’s been considered a planet for several decades. The recent discovery of an object larger and farther away than Pluto threatened to change the identity of our solar system.

Many astronomers believe that the newly found icy rock known as “2003 UB313″ should become the 10th planet.

At a 12-day conference beginning Monday, scientists will conduct a galactic census of sorts. Among the possibilities at the meeting of the International Astronomical Union in the Czech Republic capital of Prague: Subtract Pluto or christen one more planet, and possibly dozens more.

It’s time we have a definition,” said Alan Stern, who heads the Colorado-based space science division of the Southwest Research Institute of San Antonio. It’s embarrassing to the public that we as astronomers don’t have one.”

Gameshout – Is Pluto a planet?

Can you imagine the changes if they decided it was not a planet? Everything you ever learned in school about the solar system would be shaken up. Things would all change. Okay, not exactly. You see…this very thing happened to me already (yes, I’m old enough) and it might have happened to you and you didn’t realize it.

I have a daughter and early in her life, she became very interested in dinosaurs. Well I knew about those. When I was in school, they were all large, grey, slow-moving, and stupid. Things change though. Now they are various colors, some are very fast, and even in some cases…they have pack mentality. Everything I had learned in school about them had changed.

So, in the end it won’t matter if Pluto is a planet or not. We’ll all continue to learn about our solar system and maybe one day discover the reason we’re all here.

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