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From what I recall, it was more of an academic political gaming when Pluto lost it's "planet" status.

There were two schools of thought on Pluto -- some felt it was a planet, some felt it wasn't. Majority (slight) felt it was.

At a conference of planetary scientists, the "not" group waited until the end of the conference when most of the "planet" folk had left, then rushed an unannounced vote to determine Pluto a planet or not. Because of the Huey Long quality timing, there were a majority of "nots" voting and Pluto lost it's status.

woodsong wrote:From what I recall, it was more of an academic political gaming when Pluto lost it's "planet" status.

There were two schools of thought on Pluto -- some felt it was a planet, some felt it wasn't. Majority (slight) felt it was.

At a conference of planetary scientists, the "not" group waited until the end of the conference when most of the "planet" folk had left, then rushed an unannounced vote to determine Pluto a planet or not. Because of the Huey Long quality timing, there were a majority of "nots" voting and Pluto lost it's status.

They must be learning from state and federal legislators.

seamusTX wrote:I don't know the point of arguing about what is or isn't a planet. There may well be a distant body in the Kuiper belt or Oort cloud that is larger than Pluto.

Eris may be larger than Pluto and I think it kicked off the "dwarf plant" controversy with Pluto.

I'm not sure what kind of dwarf.

Correct. Eris is bigger than pluto. Actually, Pluto isnt like any of the other planets-Terrestrial or Jovian. It's rotation axis is extremely scewed, and it doesnt even come close to revolving around the sun on the same plane as the other planets. The only thing that keeps it from being classified as a comet is the fact that it has moons.