Thursday, August 17, 2006

Post 78: 170806 Our Solar System

Without much in the way of personal goings on over the last few days I’ve been looking further a field for something to report on. Being an avid space enthusiast it’s no surprise that my attention was drawn to the current conference of leading and not so leading scientists discussing and refining the nature of our universe.

Yesterday if you had innocently asked how many planets were in our solar system then you would have been given the nonchalant reply of ‘Nine’. Today however, that answer has changed.

It all began with the defining of Pluto, is she qualified to be a planet. If she is then several other bodies floating out there of a larger mass also qualify to be called planets. Well, the answer was ‘Yes!’ Pluto is a planet which then gives us three more of the little suckers to call our own. Not that we didn’t claim them before but now we can puff our chests a little larger and say there are twelve planets in our swinging solar system dancing on the outer arm, looking in on a densely populated spiral galaxy.

Get this, one was given the dubious name ‘Xena’ after the New Zealand grown television show. What this means is that all books and posters proclaiming accurate knowledge of our Solar System are now out of date. A further problem arises when we learn that there are more bodies drifting by out there that are larger than Pluto but for the time being we can’t get a good enough handle on them to define them. More reprints no doubt to ensure school children know just what our neighborhood looks like. But for now here is what our Solar system currently looks like and check out http://www.iau2006.org/ for the facts.

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

remember how we used to remember the names of the plantets? How on earth are we going to tag that on the end of the little ditty?
My Vote Exercised Might Stuff Up (the) National Party.

strangelittlegirl said...

Ha Ha Mum ur wrong!!

It's -

My vote exercised JUST might stuff up (the) national Party...

so there

:-p

strangelittlegirl said...

Oh and Craig - Zena can't be named after a kiwi tv programme cos that was spelt XENA!!! try adding that into the ditty!

Anonymous said...

Um wasn't it My Vote Exercised Might Just Stuff Up the National Party. So you might both be wrong.

Anonymous said...

No it's ' My Vote Exercised Might Just Stuff Up National.' Pluto has left with Mickey on an extended trip to Uranus!