Pluto Demoted Day – August 24

August 24, 2019 is Pluto Demoted Day, a day that changed our solar system forever.

When I was in school way back in the old days, you know, the 80s, we were taught that there were nine planets.  Since its discovery by Clyde Tombaugh in 1930, Pluto was a planet.  That all changed in 2006 when International Astronomical Union demoted poor little Pluto to a dwarf planet.

Pluto has five moons, Charon, Styx (great band), Nix, Kerberos and Hydra (Hail Hydra!).  It takes 248 Earth years for Pluto to complete one orbit around the Sun and it's orbit is elliptical rather than in the same plane as the eight planets.  It takes Pluto about 6.5 days to rotate once on it's axis and it's about 4 billion miles from Earth.  At 1473 miles across, Pluto is about 70% the diameter of our Moon and only 18% of Earth's.  I'm sure you could squeeze Pluto into the back of a Suburban.

I feel like kids today are getting robbed by not growing up in a nine planet solar system.  Teach them that there was a time when our solar system embraced the underdog, the outlier, the little guy.  Teach them about Pluto.