Clyde Tombaugh giveth, and the modern astronomer taketh away ... 76 years after its discovery, Pluto is no longer a planet. Teachers and textbook manufacturers, get out those erasers.
Why does a planet lose its status? Because the world's astronomers say eight planets is enough.
In elementary school, and later in grade school, that standing never received any scrutiny from teacher or pupil. Sure, Pluto was little more than a tiny punctuation mark at the end of the solar system, closer to the chunks ice and rock that circle at the solar system's edge.
But I came of age as probes beamed back fresh images of Uranus and Neptune; as Voyager II circled those gaseous worlds, it felt like every day they sent news of a new moon, ring formation or features unseen elsewhere in the solar system.
Only Pluto and its giant moon Charon remained a mystery. As telescopes improved our knowledge of the solar system's edge and finally a probe headed for Pluto launched in January (New Horizon's scheduled arrival: early 2016), the urge to marginalize Pluto sprouted.
Losing its status, the astronomical elite throw out terms like trans-Neptunian objects, Plutonian objects and dwarf planets; they can now throw out any number of books on the subject.
Pluto will always orbit as a planet in my mind, even if it is just a giant chunk of rock and ice disowned by a distant, ambivalent sun - and an even colder group of astronomers.
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