Aww...She's my Great Aunt.

Bummer.

Is waiting for his invitation.

+1 subby.

I don't know how she stayed with the guy for so many years, after the things he wrote about her:

"Uranus unremarkable"

I thought Mickey Mouse discovered Pluto.

First it was a discovery but then they decided it was a finding. Today's scientists have downgraded Pluto to a 'lucky guess'

I also heard that couple was very eccentric.

She was 99, but later was found to be only 88.

Inconsolable:

Earpj: Aww...She's my Great Aunt.

Bummer.

I belong to the same UU church as her, the church Clyde founded.

PizzaJedi81: dervish16108: Did you hear about Pluto? That's messed up, right?

Look, nobody cares but you. Stop using that for a pick up line, okay?

I'm getting some fries quatro quesos dos fritos, you want some?



Sees what you did there, even without the whole fingers on the forehead thing.

Earpj: Aww...She's my Great Aunt.

Bummer.

And today is also the 15 year anniversary of Dr. Tombaugh's death. My condolences to you.

Madbassist1: +1 subby.

agreed

Years later, she was informed that it wasn't really a marriage...

PizzaJedi81: I'd go with the latter, honestly. I'm 30, learned that Pluto was a planet, and think that the down grading is ridiculous. THAT'S why I'm joking about it, I don't know about other people.

It makes no difference if Pluto is a planet or an asteroid or a dwarf moon or an oblong spheroid or a paperweight or a Super Awesome Outer Space Rock of Doom. It can be Lord of the Kuiper Belt or anything else we choose to call it, it doesn't change what it is. The solar system is not so neatly divisible. In the future we are going to find even weirder stuff floating around that can't be categorized into our cute little definitions, necessitating further scientific revision. This whole issue is needless semantics.

Pluto had to be re-classified otherwise we'd be up to about 23 planets by now and I don't think children would appreciate having to learn a new mnemonic every time another trans-Neptunian object is discovered (which is every few years, currently). If you can find a way to shoehorn Haumea, Makemake, Eris, Quaoar, Varuna, Orcus, Ixion, Sedna and Chaos into the existing solar pantheon, let me know. The issue was never about making Pluto a non-planet, it was about making every other newly discovered thing a non-planet. It just so happens that all these new non-planets look and behave a lot like Pluto (as opposed to Pluto looking and behaving like the rest of the planets), so it makes sense to group Pluto with them.

This re-classification schema is not without precedent: It previously happened in the 19th century with the discovery of Ceres, Pallas, Juno and Vesta which were all considered planets for about 50 years or so until the recognition of the asteroid belt. The same thing has been done to Pluto. The argument over its designation is not really that controversial.

BurnShrike: myinternetname: Am I "feeding the troll" or "not in the joke" by saying that most people my age grew up learning that Pluto was a planet, to hell with all this nonsense that it is not?

It's not a planet. You'll get over it.

To be a little more full, if Pluto is a planet, then there are so many more things that are planets that your common sense idea of what a planet is doesn't mean as much.