Summertime on

everyone's

favorite

dwarf planet...

Pluto

When will they stop asking?

For the last few years, since the decision, kids coming up into high school science classes all over America have made known their saddness at Pluto's demotion.

For how many years will it continue? Until kids learn about, "the eight planets" instead of the nine. Those of us in the "nine planets generation" (1930-2006) see it as a change against the paradigm. Historians in the future will probably look at us like we look at the last time there were "nine planets"- in the 19th Century when Ceres was counted!

In this Bonestell image, Pluto is a lone centurion at the end of the Solar System. It was before Charon's discovery, and that of the multitude of Pluto-like worlds beyond Neptune.

But Pluto has its place in history. For 70 years this tiny world shaped the memories of earthlings lost in space.