This isn't the first time that Xena's broken my heart.
I know everyone's upset about Pluto - believe me, I am too - but doesn't anyone besides me find a lot of the hubbub about it a little... funny? This is an excerpt straight out of The L.A. Times:..."I feel like something's missing," said Micaela Chambers, 39, of Granada Hills as she played with her son outside the science center. Tombaugh said she too was disappointed. "But they had to get that mess straightened out. There's too many planets."
Though Pluto's taxonomy had always been a point of contention among scientists, it was Brown's discovery last year of UB313, which he nicknamed Xena, that forced the IAU's hand. That's because Xena was at least as large as Pluto, and possibly larger. If Pluto was a planet, how could Xena be denied?
As unpopular as the vote may be, it was the only reasonable scientific choice, he said. "There are eight really large objects in the solar system," Brown said. "They are special."...
Oh, Xena. Look at this mess you've made. Can't you see what you've ruined?
I mean, I just don't think this'll ever be the same - I just want them back like they used to be. When we were all together and happy and no one ever had to go to special "meetings" to decide what would happen to us.
You don't think Pluto had it hard enough already? Poor kid was running a whole different orbit than the rest of us. We barely saw him. Fell in with this new crowd we'd never seen before - he said they understood him better, that they were "more like him" than we were, that we wouldn't understand. Charon went with him, of course, the little guy follows him everywhere.
But now he's gone. I guess he's gone for good.
posted by Ben Wyman @ 4:06 PM
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