My Very Eager Mother Just Scorched Uncle Ned's?

I was thinking that commenting on the fairly recent decision of the IAU's decision to demote Pluto was a little past it's time. But, since today the drawf planet "Xena" was official named Eris, who is the Greek goddess of discord. Eris certainly brought plenty of discord with her with respect to our notions of what constituted a planet.

 

I am no astronmer. I don't really even know enough about the subject to qualify myself as an amateur astronomer. But, I have always had an affection for the subject. I took it as an elective in college my first semester and it remained my favorite class. Still, I have to say that I was disappointed that Pluton was demoted to a dwarf planet. I was rooting for it to stay a planet and for Ceres, Charon, and Eris to join the planetary family.

 

From what I understand, one of the big reasons for going with the current classification system is the discovery of all those trans-Neptunian objects like Eris. I heard the argument that classifying things like Pluto and Eris as planets would lead to our solar system possibly having thousands of planets. Well, if that is the case, so be it.

 

Our knowledge of the galaxy is so limited. We may find that the typical solar system might have thousands of planets. Maybe that is normal. I don't like the classification that was used, just because something might exist. Nothing has to be set in stone. Science is the best guess based on our level of knowledge at the time. It is constantly expanding and growing, so there shouldn't be a fear of reexamining it in the future.

 

Besides that, it bugs me that Mom no longer knows what she did to Uncle Ned's pants.