Sayonara My View of the Universe

So I was blithely reading the paper the other day, and came across this whole hare-brained scheme to start adding planets to our solar system. “Why, that’s ridiculous!” I thought, and did a dramatic reading for Sailor Boy, right there in the elevator.

And then I pretty much forgot about it because, well, Pluto and the Planetoids (which, by the way, would be a rocking band name) are really far away, and there are some damn pressing matters on Earth right now. (Ceres is right over the other side of mars, but whatever.)

Well then, I was reading the blog of Scott Westerfeld, who is all, Screw the new plan, and while we’re at it, screw the current scheme too. Pluto should not be a planet.

And I thought to myself, Scott, baby, don’t do this to me. I may have to find myself a new professional crush. I may have to start posting willy-nilly about some other hot young YA writer. (Kelly McClymer, whose new book, Salem Witch Try Outs, is on shelves now, might be a good option. If I were shopping. Or maybe I’ll just pick Justine, who should not be reading this right now, becuase she has work to do. Keep it in the family, as it were.)

I was, as Scott so colorfully put it, a culture vulture. I love me my Pluto. My “pizza-pie” in the mnemonic I’ve been spouting since forever. I was siding with John Scalzi and his daughter. Plu-to. Plu-to. I mean, look at how pretty the artist’s rendition of it is. Lonely outpost at the edge of space… it’s poetry, man. Plutonian poetry.

And then I kept reading, and slowly, it occurred to me that Scott and his buddies may be right. Seems this isn’t the first time we’ve reordered the solar system. It’s just the first time we’ve done it recently. According to Scott, and people in the know far more than he is, we spent much of the 19th century giving names (and even pretty ridiculous astrological symbols that look like they came out of some medieval illuminated alchemy handbook) to a whole bunch of asteroids in the asteroid belt. And then we decided that was silly and scrapped the whole plan.

And all of this was pre-Pluto. So I’m thinking, let’s just stop the madness. If getting rid of Pluto (which, by the way is apparently several times larger than Ceres, according to the U.S. Navy) means that we don’t have to suddenly have 20 planets in our solar system, I’m all for it.

Curse you, Scott Westerfeld.

However, I’m not for the “we have four planets: Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune” plan. (Though if you look at one of the newspaper photos of the new proposed solar system, that’s what it looks like: those four and some specks of dust.) Call me biased, but I like the idea of living on a planet. Though maybe I should get all Star Warsy and be satisfied living just on some rock that can sustain life.
All of this, of course, has shown me how appallingly large the gap is between what I know about my planet and what I know about the rest of the solar system. I had no idea Uranus and Neptune were that large. Obviously, in the middle of all of those Geology classes, I should have taken a few about the other planets, but mostly, what I know about outer space boils down to 1) moon geology, 2) sunspots and how they effect the earth, 3) meteorites, and 4) whatever I learned in high school.

Pathetic.

However, that nine-planet mnemonic has always been one of my favorites, so if we’re sticking with eight, we gotta switch it up.

My Very Earnest Mother Just Served Us Nectarines?

Doesn’t quite have the same oomph.

PS: Prize goes to the first person who correctly identifies the meaning and stand-ins behind the following mnemonics, which have always been my favorites:

When A Jolly Man Makes A Jump Very High Tyler Pokes Taylor

and

Come Over Some Time Maybe Play Poker Three Jacks Cover Two Queens