Astronomers Declassify Pluto In Effort To Feel Less Stupid

16th March 2004

Astronomers have decided to take about Pluto’s planet status following the discovery of a 10th large mass orbiting the Sun in an effort to prevent them from being compared to the “stupid scientists” of the past.

The new planet Sedna is roughly 75% the size of Pluto making it significantly larger than the majority of random space debri that collects in the Sun’s gravitational field. Given that Pluto is classified as a planet, and that Sedna is on a proportional scale, many have argued that this should give the new body planet status. However, most astronomers refute this claim, instead making the shock announcement that Pluto should not be considered a planet.

“It’s ridiculous,” Leading Astronomer Keith Wilson declared, “There is no way that is acceptable. I’ve spent all my life believing that we had found all there was to know, that with our sophisticated equipment we would have detected any extra planets a long time ago.

“Not only that though, but apparently this new planet has a moon! I mean, how the hell did we miss it? There were two of the little bastards out there.

“However, just as we look back in a patronising manner at those scientists who hadn’t yet discovered Neptune or Pluto, scientists from 100 years in the future will be looking back saying ‘remember those scientists from 2003? They didn’t know jack shit about the universe.’

"I'm just glad we've found it before we invented the Warp Drive. Just imagine how stupid Kirk would have looked on launch day if shortly after saying 'our mission, to discover new worlds' he flew past Sedna and went 'oh look, there's one right there... in our back yard."

“There’s absolutely no way we can let that happen – so we’ve taken the decision to declassify Pluto as a planet in order to stop this new body from counting as one. That way we don’t look stupid.”

It was posed to Mr Wilson that surely this decision made them look even more stupid for calling Pluto a planet for the past 70 years. However Mr Wilson explained he had never taken the decision to classify it as a planet and that he was just amending a mistake made by one of those “stupid scientists” from the 1930s.

Many have objected to the decision to declassify Pluto, leading to the formation of the ‘Equal Rights for Pluto’ extremist group, led by Chuck Hankman. Mr Hankman has outline several reasons defending Pluto’s planet status:

“If they are going to remove Pluto’s planet status because it’s a similar size to Sedna – why don’t they call Mercury space rubble as well? That’s not much bigger than Pluto. And Mars… that’s not much bigger than Mercury… and Earth’s on a comparable scale to Mars.

“By declassifying Pluto suddenly they make it seem like we’re no longer living on Planet, but on a random rock in the middle of nowhere special.”