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"Scientists have better things to do with their time. To me, it is pointless. There are multiple extra-solar objects out there -- at least 20 that we know of. Now, it’s just cut it at eight (planets) and stick to it," he said.
Pluto, long considered a cold, distant,cosmic underdog, was unceremoniously stripped of its status as a planet this weekby the International Astronomical Union (IAU).
"Pluto has always been kind of the odd man out because it is so different. And we know that is probably because it formed differently," said Karen Vanlandingham, assistant professor of astronomy and director of the planetarium atWest Chester University.
The IAU, an organization of about 2,500 total members dramatically reversed course Thursday just a week after floating the idea of reaffirming Pluto’s planethood and adding three new planets to Earth’s neighborhood.
"The definition of the solar system was going to change. Either it was going to be 8 planets or more like 12," Vanlandingham, said.
Pluto, a planet since 1930, got the boot because it didn’t meet the new rules, which say a planet not only must orbit the sun and be large enough to assume a nearly round shape, but must "clear the neighborhood around its orbit."
That disqualifies Pluto, which crosses Neptune’s orbit, violating the third guideline, astronomers said.
Powerful new telescopes, experts said, are changing the way they size up the mysteries of the solar system and beyond. But the scientists at the conference showed a soft side, waving plush toys of the Walt Disney character Pluto the dog -- and insisting that Pluto’s spirit will live on in the exciting discoveries yet to come.
Not everybody, however, has been pleased with the decision.
"There has been some controversy. Most astronomers don’t care either way, but there are people who are passing petitions and want to appeal the decision," Vanlandingham said.
She also estimated that only about 350 of the IAU’s members were present at the Prague meeting.
And they only make up a fraction of those on Earth.
According to Vanlandingham, there are some 10,000 astronomers worldwide.
"The word ‘planet’ and the idea of planets can be emotional because they’re something we learn as children," said Richard Binzel, a professor of planetary science at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, who helped hammer out the new definition.
"This is really all about science, which is all about getting new facts," he said. "Science has marched on. ... Many more Plutos wait to be discovered."
Astronomers have labored without a universal definition of a planet since well before the time of Copernicus, who proved that the Earth revolves around the sun, and the experts gathered in Prague burst into applause when the guidelines were passed.
Predictably, Pluto’s demotion provoked some wistful nostalgia.
"It’s disappointing in a way, and confusing," said Patricia Tombaugh, the 93-year-old widow of Pluto discoverer Clyde Tombaugh.
"I don’t know just how you handle it. It kind of sounds like I just lost my job," she said from Las Cruces, N.M. "But I understand science is not something that just sits there. It goes on. Clyde finally said before he died, ‘It’s there. Whatever it is. It is there.’"
The decision by the IAU, the official arbiter of heavenly objects, restricts membership in the elite cosmic club to the eight classical planets: Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune.
Pluto and objects like it will be known as "dwarf planets," which raised some thorny questions about semantics: If a raincoat is still a coat, and a cell phone is still a phone, why isn’t a dwarf planet still a planet?
NASA said Pluto’s downgrade would not affect its $700 million New Horizons spacecraft mission, which this year began a 9½-year journey to the oddball object to unearth more of its secrets.
But mission head Alan Stern said he was "embarrassed" by Pluto’s undoing and predicted that Thursday’s vote would not end the debate. Although 2,500 astronomers from 75 nations attended the conference, only about 300 showed up to vote.
"It’s a sloppy definition. It’s bad science," he said. "It ain’t over."
Under the new rules, two of the three objects that came tantalizingly close to planethood will join Pluto as dwarfs: The asteroid Ceres, which was a planet in the 1800s before it got demoted, and 2003 UB313, an icy object slightly larger than Pluto whose discoverer, Michael Brown of the California Institute of Technology, has nicknamed "Xena."
The third object, Pluto’s largest moon, Charon, isn’t in line for any special designation.
Brown, whose Xena find rekindled calls for Pluto’s demise because it showed it isn’t nearly as unique as it once seemed, waxed philosophical.
"Eight is enough," he said, jokingly adding: "I may go down in history as the guy who killed Pluto."
The Associated Press contributed to this article.
To contact staff writer Adam Cirucci, send an e-mail to acirucci@dailylocal.com.
