Originally posted on March 11, 2009 @ 11:30 pm
I was quite surprised when I read this bit of news today.
The state government of Illinois has recently declared that Pluto is a planet. The resolution was a way to sidestep the recent ruling of the International Astronomical Union that reclassified Pluto as a part of the Kuiper belt, removing it from the list of planets.
The specific decree reads as “RESOLVED, BY THE SENATE OF THE NINETY-SIXTH GENERAL ASSEMBLY OF THE STATE OF ILLINOIS, that as Pluto passes overhead through Illinois’ night skies, that it be reestablished with full planetary status, and that March 13, 2009 be declared ‘Pluto Day’ in the State of Illinois in honor of the date its discovery was announced in 1930.”
A big reason Illinois is desperately fighting for Pluto’s “planetary” status is because the man who discovered Pluto in 1930, Clyde Tombaugh, is an Illinois native. Having said that I still find it quite hilarious that whenever Pluto passes over Illinois it goes from a part of the Kuiper Belt into a full fledged planet. They should’ve also changed its name from Pluto to Schizophrenia.