Sorry, I don't agree. The point about "Pluto" being what it has always been stands. Even if it IS a cluster of smaller bodies instead of a single larger one. If so, it still has always been this and changes nothing other than the fact that OUR PERCEPTION has been incomplete.

Even so, this very same debate over its status HAS nonetheless raged since it was discovered.

In any cluster of orbiting bodies there will be one that can be singled out and be described as the largest no matter how slightly so. Why would there be any reason to name this body something other than "Pluto"? To say that there is no "planetoid" would be to discard Ceres or Eros or any of the other named asteroids. Why would we choose to discard the name "Pluto" for whatever body is the prime one in this newly discovered cluster?

As to Charon or its (non)existence, I don't see where the new data forces us to discard its existence at all. If there is a cluster, so be it. Charon is another body in this cluster. If it is NOT in orbit about the larger body "Pluto" that remains to be proven. So far, all evidence says it is, but if this turns out to be wrong, then it turns out to be wrong. That evidence is not in yet.

I still fail to see what the big deal is in any of this. It's a great discovery, but I would hardly call our previous less accurate information a myth.

• P.S. See post above....directly under original from Carlos - daViper - July 9, 1999 - 20:18 UTC
• pluto may be the force - raz85 - December 7, 2001 - 06:26 UTC