Get Ready For a 53 Planet Solar System (But We May Keep Pluto!)

The new definition of "planet"? "Round and orbity," the LAT snarks.

There goes the solar system.

The elite society of nine lordly bodies of rock, ice and gas would grow to at least 12 and as many as 53 members under a new definition of "planet" proposed Tuesday by the International Astronomical Union.

The core of the definition? Planets are round. And they orbit a star.

Interesting. I'm glad we have astronomers to figure these things out for us.

The proposal was hammered out after two years of intense astronomical debate among leading experts of the Astronomical Union, the international authority for naming celestial objects.

"We now have a new way to put the solar system together," said MIT astronomer Richard Binzel, a member of the committee that drafted the proposal. "We think this definition is reasonable."

It will be voted on next week by the group's general assembly, which is now meeting in Prague, Czech Republic. Binzel said he was optimistic the definition would be approved.

The new list of planets would include UB313, which was recently discovered beyond Pluto's orbit, as well as two bodies that have previously been rejected for planetary status: Pluto's moon Charon and Ceres, the largest object in the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter.

Charon and Pluto would become the solar system's first double planet, meaning they twirl around each other but neither dominates.

Awwwww... that's kind of cute.

So, okay: All these Big Fat Geniusheads knocking together and they've come up with a definition stating that planets are:

* round

* "orbity"

* may in fact be moons of other planets

* but not so much that they become "macaques"

A big convention, and this is what they've come up with?

I hope the hookers were good.

Pissing Me Off:

Ceres would also become the sole member of a subclass called "dwarf planets."

What? We're making up a subclass with precisely one member just to jam Ceres into there?

Who gives a rat's ass about Ceres? It doesn't have the spunk or charisma of a, oh, I don't know, Pluto for example.

It's a frickin' asteroid, man. Can't we leave it at that?

PS, I've seen pictures of this piece of shit liberal "dwarf planet" Ceres, and if I'm not mistaken, it ain't all that round. At best it's roundish or rounded.

Basically it's an irregularly shaped piece of socialist macaque-rock that has the slightest roundish nature to it but did one time suck off Carl Sagan's lab assistant, so now we all have to bow down to mighty Ceres, King of the Planets That Aren't Really Planets.

I'm so angry.

Let's go over to this convention and kick all these dweebs' asses. And then take all their hookers.

Okay, So It's Round:

I guess I was thinking of other licentious perverts in this shit-rock gangbang of an asteroid belt, like the whore Ida or mincing pimp Eros.

So, fine, let's all bow down to our new master "Ceres." Because it's round.

Kind of.

posted by Ace at 07:25 AM

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