How about increasing from 9 to 24 planets !!!

The International Astronomical Union (IAU) is debating a plan to establish that our solar system has 12 planets.



Our solar system would have 12 planets instead of nine under a proposed "Big Bang" expansion by leading astronomers, changing what billions of schoolchildren are taught about their corner of the cosmos.

Much-maligned Pluto would remain a planet -- and its largest moon plus two other heavenly bodies would join Earth's neighborhood -- under a draft resolution to be formally presented to the International Astronomical Union, the arbiter of what is and is not a planet.

"Yes, Virginia, Pluto is a planet!!!," quipped Richard Binzel, a professor of planetary science at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. The proposal could change, however: Binzel and the other nearly 2,500 astronomers from 75 nations meeting in Prague to hammer out a universal definition of a planet will hold two brainstorming sessions before they vote on the resolution next week. But the draft comes from the IAU's executive committee, which only submits recommendations likely to get two-thirds approval from the group.

NEW LINE UP ...
- the new lineup would include 2003 UB313, the farthest-known object in the solar system and nicknamed Xena; Pluto's largest moon, Charon; and the asteroid Ceres, which was a planet in the 1800s before it was demoted. The panel also proposed a new category of planets called "plutons," referring to Pluto-like objects that reside in the Kuiper Belt, a mysterious, disc-shaped zone beyond Neptune containing thousands of comets and planetary objects. Pluto itself and two of the potential newcomers -- Charon and 2003 UB313 -- would be plutons.



The asteroid Ceres, about 930 kilometers (580 miles) across, was the first asteroid ever detected.





If the resolution is approved, the 12 planets in our solar system listed in order of their proximity to the sun would be Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Ceres, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune, Pluto, Charon, and the provisionally named 2003 UB313. Its discoverer, Michael Brown of the California Institute of Technology, nicknamed it Xena after the warrior princess of TV fame, but it likely would be rechristened something else !!!

IMPACT IN GEOGRAPHY TEXTBOOKS :(
The galactic shift would force publishers to update encyclopedias and school textbooks, and elementary school teachers to rejigger the planet mobiles hanging from classroom ceilings. Far outside the realm of science, astrologers accustomed to making predictions based on the classic nine might have to tweak their formulas.

Even if the list of planets is officially lengthened when astronomers vote on Aug-24-2006, it is not likely to stay that way for long: The IAU has a "watchlist" of at least a dozen other potential candidates that could become planets once more is known about their sizes and orbits.

Definition of a Planet
Opponents of Pluto, which was named a planet in 1930, still might spoil for a fight. Earth's moon is larger; so is 2003 UB313 (Xena), about 70 miles (113 kilometers) wider. But the IAU said Pluto meets its proposed new "definition" of a planet: any round object larger than 800 kilometers (nearly 500 miles) in diameter that orbits the sun and has a mass roughly one-12,000th that of Earth. Moons and asteroids will make the grade if they meet those basic tests. Roundness is key because it indicates an object has enough self-gravity to pull itself into a spherical shape. Yet Earth's moon would not qualify because the two bodies' common center of gravity lies below the surface of the Earth.

Remarks
For the first time since ancient Greece, we have an unambiguous definition. Now, when an object is debated as a possible planet, the answer can be swift and clear.

Many people say the sentence (called a mnemonic) "My Very Educated Mother Just Showed Us Nine Planets" as a way to remember the order of the planets. If 2003 UB313, Ceres and Charon are dubbed planets, what new sentence will we use to remember them?

more...

Imagine IAU's idea of adding 12 more...that would result in 24 "planets"...Thank GOD I finished my school earlier else I would have been forced to learn the structures of "twenty-four" planets and their names!!!