More geeky space news! This is more mainstream-popular, though, as I’ve seen it popping up everywhere. Pluto is no longer a planet. I’m actually a bit surprised at the uproar this seems to be causing; Slashdot has more on this.

Me, I guess I’ve always been suspicious of Pluto; I mean, the thing has this wildly weird orbit that goes above the plane of the ecliptic and that swings inside Neptune’s orbit. And, it’s smaller than our own moon. And, its own moon, Charon, doesn’t actually orbit around Pluto; rather, they orbit around each other (with the center of axis somewhere between them rather than at Pluto’s center).

All decidedly un-planetlike.

So I think reclassifying it is a good move. It doesn’t make it any less mysterious or interesting. I guess I just don’t see why this is such a big deal; Pluto itself didn’t go anywhere.

So, my two cents.

And, getting even geekier (possible?), the Wikipedia article on Pluto mentions it “is the prototype of a yet-to-be-named family of trans-Neptunian objects.” Trans-Neptunian? No no no. It should properly be classified as a Kuiper Belt Object. Right up there with other KBOs like Sedna, Quaoar, and the like. (And the name “plutino” is just stupid.)