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Pluto’s Demotion is Well Deserved and Long Overdue

August 24th, 2006
Author Robert Roy Britt

» Pluto’s Demotion is Well Deserved and Long Overdue

You might love Pluto, but since 1930 it has been a glaring (if hard to see) error in astronomical decision-making.

The vote today to boot Pluto off the list of planets gives the word “planet” some scientific meaning.

Astronomers stared down public opinion and made the right decision. Now they have a big job: to stay the course in the face of immediate and future outcry from the public or from any astronomers would would revise the main points of the decision.