The End of the World as We Knew It

It’s the end of an era. Just like when Rachel moved out and Chandler moved in. The International Astronomical Union of Nerds has declared that Pluto no longer fits the definition of a planet.

I for one am deeply saddened at Pluto’s demotion. The very foundations of my knowledge and understanding of the universe have been shaken. Pluto not a planet. How can it be?

Since the early 70s, when I first learned about space, I have “known” there to be nine planets. Pluto was my favorite (with Saturn a close second). Pluto was the underdog planet, the smallest, most distant, and most recently discovered. Pluto was the “and sometimes Y” of the solar system, the oddball, the black sheep. Pluto was lonely out there at the margins of the solar system, never having been visited by human beings or even a human-built space craft, and likely never to be visited. Pluto needed my love and affection.

The smallest Styrofoam ball attached to the longest wooden dowel on my model of the solar system represented Pluto. I always painted it in my favorite color because of Pluto’s underdog status, in the hopes that Pluto would get the recognition it deserved, and perhaps not feel second-best to the other planets (Yes, like the astronomers, SHmonkey too is fairly nerdy having personified both numbers and letters, in addition to planets, while growing up. Fours were stupid, nines were mean, sevens were cool—and their characteristics changed based on the other numbers they kept company with.).

And now, of all the indignities, Pluto has been kicked out of the planetary family all together. Dear Pluto, you will forever remain close to my heart. I will now look at the solar system kits in the craft stores (yes, I still look at them wistfully—see comment above regarding SHmonkey’s nerdiness) and date them based on whether they contain eight or nine planets (much like I date maps and globes based on whether or not they display a Soviet Union, a Yugoslavia, Rhodesia, etc.), and I will refuse to buy a model that fails to contain a Pluto out of loyalty (it should be noted that I do buy up-to-date maps out of political pragmatism, but I do appreciate the old ones as novelties).