For several years now, the IAU (International Astronomical Union), which is the arbiter of names for all space objects) has been wrestling with the problem of whether Pluto should be declared a non-planet. Discovered in 1930 by Clyde Tombaugh at the Lowell Observatory in Arizona, Pluto was then designated to be the third of only three planets which have been found in the solar system in thousands of years since the ancient Chinese, Babylonians, Indians, and Greeks first noticed that some points of light in the night sky (planets) moved about through the stationary stars in the constellations. The two other "new" discovered planets were Uranus in 1781 and Neptune in 1846.

Pluto's mass, size, density, and orbital differences from other planets caused scientific controversy over whether it was a genuine planet or a minor asteroid-type object. Some of Pluto's unusual planetary features are present in billions of "iceballs" orbiting about the Sun in the Kuiper Belt, which was predicted by Gerard Kuiper in the 1950s to exist just beyond Pluto's orbit. Some scientists think Pluto is a Kuiper Belt iceball that is the closest one to the sun, but others consider it a true planet located farthest from the sun. After procrastinating for a decade, the IAU decided on Aug. 24, 2006, a day that will live in planetary infamy - that Pluto should be downgraded from a planet into a newly created group of dwarf-planets (Snow White was not amused). These would include one asteroid (Ceres), two Kuiper iceballs (Sedna and Xena), and Pluto.

But before it could be demoted from a planet to a Kuiper iceball, the IAU had to come up with a new definition of a planet that would exclude Pluto. The old definition had worked well for 2,250 years, ever since Aristarchus discovered in 250 BC that Earth was a planet which, each year, orbited the Sun once every 3651/4 days. Copernicus confirmed this 1,800 years later in 1543 when he proved that all known planets orbited round the Sun.

Pluto's status as a planet is strongly supported by its distance from the sun being consistent with its predicted position in Bode's Law, a numerical progression used in 1781 to discover Uranus and in 1800 to discover the Asteroid Belt. The position of every planet except Neptune correlates with distances derived from Bode's Law. The IAU's tortuous revised definition of a planet specifies that it must have cleared all lesser bodies out of its orbital neighborhood by having enough mass for its gravity to attract them to it. (Could this also be a Black Hole?) Except for Mercury and Venus which have no ancillary bodies in their orbits, this proviso would demote each of the seven other planets to a something else, because they haven't cleared out their orbital paths.

For example, Earth shares its orbit with the moon and with two close objects known as co-orbital asteroids. Mars has two moons and two Trojan asteroids in its orbit. Jupiter has 2,055 Trojan asteroids in its orbit, by Jove, plus many moons. Saturn's orbit includes its rings and numerous moons, and both Uranus and Neptune move through their orbits along with retinues of attendant moons.

The IAU's vendetta against Pluto would use its hastily concocted, convoluted, confusing, cockamamie redefinition of what a planet is, as a basis for downgrading Pluto from a bona fide planet to a dwarf planet. Since the new IAU revised definition would cause the Solar System to lose seven of its nine planets that do not conform to the new definition, only two confirmed planets would be left. The sun would really be lonely to find that most of the planets with which it had formed 4.6 billion years ago had been cast into cosmological limbo.

If enough people, especially scientists and children, would complain, perhaps the IAU would retain Pluto as a planet at least until it can come up with a definition of what a planet is that is not ludicrous. We deserve better things from our prestigious astronomers. Gee, I'm glad I'm only a planetary geologist.