i've realized....

[2eclipse]

that in my heart of hearts, i do not accept that pluto is not a planet. i think the difference between a "dwarf planet" and an ordinary planet is nit-picking, irrelevant semantics. i think the scientists are being stupid to make a whole 'nother category because it's smaller. i think it doesn't really matter and i feel jerked around for no good reason. it makes me mad.
but teachers everywhere have changed their curriculum.
i will probably be one of those old ladies insisting to my grandkids that there are 9 (or 10 if they find another) planets while my children fume.
i wonder what would happen to the world if scientists everywhere started believing something drastically different from everyone else, something more bizarre than evolution - and the public simply refused to believe them. what if the public was right? or neither were right?
good story premise?

Comments

[lucifermourning.livejournal.com]

is that what they're calling it? a dwarf planet? sounds like a concession to the public to me. my understanding is that they've known for some time that pluto is basically a glorified asteroid (or is it meteor--i do get the two mixed up). it just happens to be one of the largest and nearest in that region of space--but there's many, many bits of debris out in that region of space. the nail in pluto's coffin was when they found a bigger one.

granted, it is possibly slightly arbitrary to distinguish between any rocky planet and really big asteroids, but they do have to draw the line somewhere. and i think their decision made a lot of sense.