This is a cute and fun Monday Schoolhouse Rock song--Interplanet Janet. Interplanet Janet was the way we GenXers learned our solar system--Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune, and Pluto.
But that was before the Great Planetary Debate took place back in August 2006. According to this August 24, 2006 MSNBC story, the International Astronomical Union set up a series of guidelines to scientifically define the term planet. According to the IAU, "A planet is a celestial body that (a) has sufficient mass for its self-gravity to overcome rigid body forces so that it assumes a hydrostatic equilibrium (nearly round) shape, and (b) is in orbit around a star, and is neither a star nor a satellite of a planet."
Well, this caused a huge controversy between astronomers who accepted the IAU guidelines, and the astronomers who wanted to keep Pluto named as a planet. And if it is bad enough for the astronomers to be fighting over whether Pluto is a planet or not, the controversy has rocked Interplanet Janet and her Comet Team since now the lyrics of the Schoolhouse Rock song has become obsolete.
Or will there be a day when Pluto can rise up and rightfully become a planet again?
Here is Monday Schoolhouse Rock--Interplanet Janet: From YouTube:
Monday, April 30, 2007
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