| And Then There Were Eight
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| Date and Time |
- | Aug. 24th, 2006, 11:10 am | |
| Current Mood |
- |  blank | |
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| Astronomers meeting in the Czech capital have voted to strip Pluto of its status as a planet.
About 2,500 experts were in Prague for the International Astronomical Union's (IAU) general assembly.
Astronomers rejected a proposal that would have retained Pluto as a planet and brought three other objects into the cosmic club.
Pluto has been considered a planet since its discovery in 1930 by the American Clyde Tombaugh.
The ninth planet will now effectively be airbrushed out of school and university textbooks.
The decision was made at a meeting of the International Astronomical Union (IAU) in Prague. The astronomers voted by raising their yellow ballot papers for a count.
"The eight planets are Mercury, Earth, Venus, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune," said the IAU resolution, which was passed following a week of stormy debate.
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| Lesbians in Space
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| Date and Time |
- | Oct. 3rd, 2005, 12:50 am | |
| Current Mood |
- |  amused | |
| Current Music |
- | lake watching girls next door | |
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| WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Xena, the possible 10th planet in our solar system, has its own moon, a dim little satellite called Gabrielle, its discoverers reported.
Astronomers who reported Xena's discovery in July said they detected Xena's sidekick on September 10 using the Keck Observatory on Mauna Kea in Hawaii. Their findings will be submitted to the Astrophysical Journal Letters on Monday.
"Since the day we discovered Xena, the big question has been whether or not it has a moon," Michael Brown, of the California Institute of Technology, said in a statement. "Having a moon is just inherently cool — and it is something that most self-respecting planets have, so it is good to see that this one does too."
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