Requiem for the 10th (and 9th) planet(s)

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Probably the person with the most to "lose" from the recent definition of planet is Mike Brown, the discoverer of Xena, which would have been a planet under any definition that included Pluto. But even he supports the new definition (HT: Grishnash via email):
Many people around the globe are mourning the loss of Pluto from the pantheon of planets today after astronomers voted overwhelmingly in favor of a definition of the word "planet" that includes only the first 8 planets. The change had been discussed for years, so no one should have been surprised that it finally happened. The new definition essentially corrects an astronomical mistake from 76 years ago, and shows that astronomy can move forward in the face of new information about the solar system. Pluto is now rightly classified with the rest of the recently discovered Kuiper belt objects, rather than awkwardly stuck in with the planets.
If anyone has cause to complain, he does. And if he can accept the new definition, so can everyone else.

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