Aug 24

Written by: drfranco
Thursday, August 24, 2006

Well after all these years Pluto has been demoted. Astronomers no longer consider it a planet.

"Whoa! Pluto's dead," said astronomer Mike Brown, of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, as he watched a Web cast of the vote. "There are finally, officially, eight planets in the solar system."

Researchers at the International Astronomical Union in Prague, in the Czech Republic voted on the definition of the word "planet." The group is responsible for deciding the official names of all celestial bodies.

Planet never had an official meaning before this meeting. The new definition is to qualify as a planet, an object orbiting the sun has to be large enough that it has become round due to the force of its own gravity, and it also has to dominate the neighborhood around its orbit.

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