Good news, everyone! At last, everyone's favourite Kuiper Belt object, Pluto, has been denounced as the pretender it has always been. With its jauntily-angled orbit, it always rejected the convention common to real planets of orbiting in the ecliptic plane, and even flaunted its whacky eccentricity by hopping continually inside and outside of Neptune's orbit, like it was some sort of galactic skipping rope.
So, astronomers have agreed to stop pretending that Pluto is the same kind of thing as the other eight planets (or, the four 'Proper' planets and four 'Giant Balls of Gas', as I prefer to think of them). Hurrah. But for some people, this is going too far. Our friend Jon pointed out today that some of the comments on the BBC's coverage of the reclassification of Pluto indicate some people's fear of change - any kind of change - verges on the desperate:
Added: Thursday, 24 August, 2006, 21:08 GMT 22:08 UK
These scientists are always trying to play God - can't they just leave things as they are? Its a sad day...
DEBORAH HILL, BRIERFIELD, United Kingdom
[from BBC News | Have Your Say: Are you sad to see Pluto reclassified?]
Yeah, scientists - know your place. Stop playing God. Only HE may name the Heavenly Bodies. HE has decreed that there are nine planets, and the number of the planets shall be nine. Astronomers shouldn't go sticking their noses in where they don't belong, choosing what is a planet and what is not.
Next thing you know, they'll be telling us that some of the tiny points of light that God has decreed are stars are actually distant 'galaxies' or something. I do wish they'd stop discovering things and get on with proper science.