Re: Sorry Prof'
Thank you for that link. I learned that I had totally belonged to the group that imagined that the Moon orbited Earth, but it actually orbits the Sun with a bit of gravitational perturbation from that ol' ball of Earth.
A disturbing perspective. I might, with the good help of my friend Jack, be able to drink that away and consider that lizard men are once again trying to conspiracy-theory influence reality, but that will take some time.
In any case, I cannot shake the belief that the discussion around the planetary status of Pluto is more down to the fact that it is the only planetary body discovered by an American than any truly scientific discussion. Typical New World nuisances that have to have something important to their name since they only have a quarter of a millennium to show History.
Personally, I find it much more logical to imagine that Pluto belongs to the undoubtedly large Kuiper Belt Objects group rather than consider it a Planet. Maybe adding another rule, something along the lines of "a planet cannot have a moon larger than one-half its mass" would quell the discussion (yeah, right).
All of this will not keep Planet X from being called a Planet, though, as soon as we find where the bloomin' dale it is.
Biting the hand that feeds IT
