Date: Mon, 15 Mar 2004 01:13:18 -0500
From: Adrienne <ase at wam.umd.edu>
To: WSFA members <WSFAlist at keithlynch.net>
Subject: [WSFA] Re: Re: Re: possible tenth Solar planet
Reply-To: WSFA members <WSFAlist at keithlynch.net>

Eric Jablow wrote:

> If you visit the Rose Planetarium at the American Museum of Natural
> History in new York, you will see that they unilaterally have declared
> Pluto not to be a planet but a Kuiper body. This is controversial, to
> say the least.  The worst aspect of that decision is that the mnemonic
> becomes "My Very Elegant Mother Just Served Us Nine--"  Nine what?
> It used to be "Nine Pizzas," but now it's just "Nine."

Nachos, perhaps. My Very Elegant Mother Just Served Us Nachos.

It'll be interesting to see how the Pluto/Sedna planethood debate goes. It
strikes me as being mostly semantics - doesn't Pluto behave as a Kuiper
belt object? - but it's interesting to see why scientists hold the
positions they do.

Adrienne
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