CLEVER MONKEY OF THE WEEK

Pluto
For Surviving, It Seems, As A Planet
Disqualified!

This week we nominated 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 it seemed that Pluto might, after all these decades of secure distinction, since its discovery in 1930, be demoted to asteroid status. But rumor had it that The International Astronomical Union would 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, it seemed 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?

But, as cosmic fate would have it, the members entrusted with Pluto's destiny voted against its credentials for true planethood. As a result, we must disqualify the diminutive oval from its status as a full-fledged planet and consign it to being one of three members of a new category of celestial object, called, humiliatingly enough, dwarf planets.

Ah, how the mighty can be humbled!

One moment, a planet in all its reflected glory and the next, a mere dwarf.

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