The International Astronomical Union has decided on the term "plutoid" as a name for dwarf planets like Pluto.
Sidestepping concerns of many astronomers worldwide, the IAU's decision, at a meeting of its Executive Committee in Oslo, comes almost two years after it stripped Pluto of its planethood and introduced the term "dwarf planets" for Pluto and other small round objects that often travel highly elliptical paths around the sun in the far reaches of the solar system.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/space/200806...calledaplutoid
I really hope I'm not only one who thinks this is stupid!
I thought it was dumb for them to remove pluto from the planets in the first place.
It definately makes teaching the mneumonic device of 'my very energetic mother just served us nine pizzas' interesting since 'pizzas' is now not a planet.
I guess I was a "bad" teacher because my 3rd graders learned the mneumonic with all 9 planets, had to create their own mneumonic with all 9 planets and had to learn about all 9 planets.