This week we nominate for clever monkey, not a person who has distinguished himself or herself for something well or ill accomplished, but Pluto, which, until recently, bestrode the heavens, securely placed in our imaginations as the most distant and smallest planet.
Then other bodies in the distant solar system were discovered, with our ever more deeply prying telescopes, that are even larger than the diminutive, ringed body.
So for a time it seemed that Pluto might, after all these decades of secure distinction, since its discovery in 1930, be demoted to asteroid status.
Soon The International Astronomical Union will meet and decide on its fate. Rumor is that its members will likely preserve Pluto's status by the clever tactic of redefining just what it takes to qualify as a planet.
In fact, as part of its survival, we could find ourselves with as many as three new members of sun-circling globes, named Xena, Charon, and Ceres.
What could be, astronomically speaking, more clever than that? |
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