Odd Thoughts About Pluto & Goldilocks

When I first met Daddy, I was nine and he was 45. We had this conversation about Pluto that went on for a while before we realized that he was talking about the dog and I was talking about the planet.

I have mentioned that I, at one time, wanted to be an astronomer. When I discovered that it involved much more math than it did looking through telescopes and that it wouldn't qualify me to go to the moon, I gave that up. The names and order of the planets in our solar system was, to quote Henry of Ugly Betty, "Just a thing that I know." An important part of life, knowing those things which would never change. You know, the number of planets, the names, the order, the number of moons. That sorta real, forever stuff. Yep.

When I taught Montessori, we had a solar system mobile. The planets were mostly to scale as far as size, but distances weren't possible. The planets closer in than Neptune were all in one corner of the classroom, and then in the furthest away corner of the building was Pluto. And that was way too close. Had they been in distance scale, Pluto would have had to be 1,000 miles away. Or so I'm told.

Someone has decided that Pluto isn't even a planet at all. Which solves where to put it on the mobile, I suppose, but isn't satisfying to me at all. Richard tells me that one can classify the planets like you do the vowels: Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune, and sometimes Pluto. I guess that will have to do.

On top of these musings, I read of a new, non-solar planet that is believed to be the first to be discovered so far that could support life. The first that isn't a Goldilocks planet. Not too hot. Not too cold. The rather delightful confusion of astronomy and children's concerns just goes on and on.