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Article: Poor Pluto!(The Week)(delisted by International Astronomical Union)(Brief article)
- Article from:
- National Review
- Article date:
- July 9, 2007
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 2007 National Review, Inc. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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* Poor Pluto! Stripped of its status as a planet by the International Astronomical Union last August, it has now been further demoted. Investigations by two Caltech astronomers, reported in a recent issue of Science, demonstrate that the more remote body named Eris, discovered in 2005, is more massive than Pluto, so that those reactionaries who persist in thinking of Pluto as a planet must count Eris as one, too. Since Eris is merely one among numberless objects in the trans-Plutonian zone known as the Kuiper belt, no doubt there will be further insults to the dignity of Pluto, and to those patriots who long ...