Bad Astronomy Blog was one of the first web sites to report that “The IAU has voted on a series of resolutions on what a planet is and what a planet isn’t, and the verdict is… Pluto is not a planet.”
The post also notes that “This is a big turnaround from the initial resolution, which would have given our solar system at least 12 planets, and potentially many, many more.”
I guess this means that we’ll have to come up with a new mnemonic for remembering the nine eight planets…
Oh, and in case you’re interested, Collision Detection happened upon the somewhat surreal naming conventions for features on planets and moons in our Solar System.
