the rix mix

While I'm disappointed that Pluto has been demoted from major planet status, the feeling is entirely sentiment. Many astronomers & astro-physicists are genuinely sorry that it had to be done. We need to agree on a definition for a "planet" because there are so many different kinds of things out there that were unknown ten years ago much less in 1930. The change reflects wonderful discoveries of objects far beyond Pluto in our own solar system, of planets circling other stars, of stars circling stars, of gaseous giants & failed suns & collapsing fields of space debris. When Clyde W. Tombaugh discovered Pluto with an Earth-based telescope in Arizona, he wasn't building a fence; he was opening a door, & we stepped through it.