We’re just teasing Pluto now. We should just leave it alone after dumping
it from the solar system
In case you were caught all unawares by the latest science news, the space probe "New Horizons" had its historic fly-by of Pluto yesterday after a 9 1/2 year journey through the solar system. The probe is currently sending back photos to NASA, which are being revealed in press conferences throughout the day today. It's really very exciting.
Except for the fact that we don't love Pluto anymore.
In 2005, a full 75 years after Clyde Tombaugh discovered Pluto, the definition of "planet" was changed. Late in 2006, Pluto was reclassified and left out in the cold. Literally and figuratively...it's pretty stupid cold out in space, particularly 3.7 billion miles from the sun. It was reclassified as a "dwarf planet" and simply an object floating around in the Kuiper belt. It's really quite sad for Pluto.
We didn't know this was going to happen back in early 2006 when New Horizons was launched. We still liked Pluto then and considered it a member of out little solar system and mnemonic about nine pizzas. We were all very happy together, but as happens all the time, we made plans a little too far in advance, and they turned awkward later.
Fast forward to 2015, and the little dwarf planet that we dumped mere months after sending out a probe to say hi is back in the news. Pluto is once again reminded of us by having New Horizons pass within 7800 miles of the planet, akin to stalking it on Facebook. It's a little creepy of us, in hindsight. Pluto is left wondering if we could have had a future together as a solar system, but we've long since moved on, finding planets in other star systems throughout the universe.
People are jerks.
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