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Guess what's new in the news. It's Pluto, this planet once proud to be relegated as West Bromwich Albion or Stoke City on a dwarf planet 12 years ago.
Well, you can not keep a tiny, non-planet-like planet running around the sun for billions of miles. Heck, 12 years old is nothing for Pluto. Its orbit around the sun takes 248 years. It's a little over a week into Earth Hour.
If the status of the Earth as a planet was removed for a week or two, then, depending on what was happening in the news, we would hardly notice it. With some people, Trump has things going on, such as the Environmental Protection Agency and the Department of Education, this may have already happened.
Who knows?
To refresh everyone's memory of Pluto in 2006, a group called the International Astronomical Union (Local 458) set out to create a list of criteria on what makes the planet a planet.
Then they applied this criterion to the nine planets we have known and loved for years. Planets which, at one time or another of our school careers, represented polystyrene balls of different sizes attached to hangers for the vain purpose of manufacturing a mobile solar system.
After applying their new criteria, IAU found that, surprisingly, Pluto did not meet the requirements it had set for a planet.
Does it seem fishy? This group knew how to go about what the nine planets were and their characteristics. Yet, they developed a set of rules that seemed specifically designed to exclude only one of these planets?
It was a fake system. Pluto has never been lucky. IAU might as well have made a rule saying that there can not be a planet if the name starts with a P.
The basic rules that the IAU set out stipulated that to be considered a planet, a celestial body had to be in orbit around the sun, have a rounded shape and "clear the neighborhood" nearby.
I guess that's the last rule that sank Pluto. In smaller, Pluto does not clean the neighborhood. In other words, it's not big enough to push other objects out of its way.
It's size.
According to a study that calls into question the demotion of Pluto, the problem is that no one has ever used these demining criteria when defining a planet.
The AIU took this unique aspect that makes Pluto different and decided to include it as a major planning criterion, knowing full well that Pluto could not satisfy it.
To do this, someone must have a serious grudge against Pluto. However, I'm not sure how we end up in a grudge match with a planet. Maybe the Pluto polystyrene Plaid fell from his solar system mobile on the way to school and they spent the entire scientific period arguing with the professor to say that there were only eight planets .
Then, when they received a D-on on the project because everyone knows that there are nine planets, this person swore one day to prove that everyone was wrong.
A few years ago, I would have thought this scenario was crazy and far fetched. Imagine, someone with a childish grudge seeking revenge by ensuring that all those who have harmed them pay them.
Then Trump became president.
Now, it seems that the most likely reason why Pluto was stripped of his planet: because of the beef of several decades.
The good news is that we do not have to live with this decision forever. Changes can be made.
Lee lives in Medway. Send him an email at [email protected].
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