The Intergalactic Highway

For the past couple years, astronomers have debated about which one of those space rocks way out there are worthy of the title "the tenth planet" or whether Pluto is even the ninth planet. A few weeks ago, without much fanfare (that I know of) Pluto was kicked out. But then, a new definition of the term "planet" was coined, saving Pluto as well as paving the way for THREE new potential planets! They are:

-Ceres, a round asteroid between Mars and Jupiter.

-Charon, Pluto's "moon."

-2003 UB313, which was nicknamed "Xena."

If they're admitted, I guess we better come up with a new mnemonic device, 'cause "My Very Eager Mother Just Served Us Nine [insert food beginning with 'P']" won't work anymore.

I've always thought of Charon as a planet. It's too big to be a moon. But... seriously... Xena? Why the frag did these guys get that name?

Oh, btw, I have an own star in space. There's a star-naming program on the Net, and I chose mine from the constellation of Scorpio and named it Beldarius. (I'm Pisces/Dragon in horoscope... I chose Scorpio because I love the name Antares)

I learnt it as "My very eager monkey jumped swiftly under nine planets". Crazy geography teacher! :p

I've been casually watching the planet naming progress, but I didn't know they'd changed the definition so much recently that we could have three extra planets. As for Xena, for a long time the supposed planet was dubbed "Planet X" so I can see how it evolved. I just hope they didn't get the idea from Xena: Warrior Princess, although it wouldn't surprise me since most of the scientists in such space research programs are male.

Pluto-Charon is a dual-planet system much like the Earth-Moon system. Regardless, Charon is still a moon as it orbits Pluto, likewise, the Moon is still a moon because it orbits Earth. Had these moons been in seperate orbits they would be considered planets, along with the Galilean Sattelites, Titan and Triton.

As for planets, I was a solar system nutcase back in the day. I memorised the names of the planets without the use of mnemonic, along with diamater, surface temperatures, Number of moons and distinguishing features.

I'm probably a little bit out of date by now but I still recall some interesting tidbits, for instance, Maxwell Montes is the second highest mountain in the solar system, resides on Venus and is one of the very few features of it's surface named after a male. Neptune had it's own gigantic Hurricane, the Great Dark Spot and Triton is one of the few places in the solar system where Cryovolcanism takes place.

As for these paltry new additions to the planetary family, they're like the red-headed stepchild thrice removed. It all ended with Pluto

The debate over whether or not Pluto should be considered a planet isn't new, and I'd kinda been hoping they'd just leave the title for old time's sake, but I'd rather have Pluto classified as something else than dump in three other spherical masses just so Pluto stays a planet.

And I believe Planet X was indeed named after the warrior princess.

And color me a planet elitist, but I'm slightly irked that they'd consider giving an asteroid the lofty title of "Planet."
(Yes, that was tongue-in-cheek.)