Pluto was nothing but a dear and loyal friend to us all. In addition to ingeniously walking the line between planet and not a planet, Pluto inspired some of modern society's greatest artistic contributions including Future's Pluto and, for that matter, Future's Pluto 3D which was definitely not *just* a reissue.
However, as Neil deGrasse Tyson can't help but repeatedly remind us, Pluto is most definitely not a planet at all. Though this news may come as a bit of a shock to some, our surely doomed solar system needn't worry any longer about procuring a ninth planet to take Pluto's fraudulently earned spot. That massive personnel change has (possibly) already happened, fellow planetary detectives, meaning your theories and opinions on Pluto (much like those of noted Pluto loverStephen Colbert) have been promptly rendered pointless:
"If there’s going to be another planet in the solar system, I think this is it," Greg Laughlin of the University of California, Santa Cruz tells National Geographic. "It would be quite extraordinary if we had one. Fingers crossed. It would be amazing." How amazing, exactly? Peep the stats: "This thing is on an exceptionally frigid, long-period orbit, and probably takes on the order of 20,000 years to make one full revolution around the sun," says Caltech's Konstantin Batygin. Fittingly enough, this Pluto-hating saboteur is reportedly really far away and at least "10 times as massive as Earth."
Evidence of this possible Solar System inductee was published in Wednesday's Astronomical Journal, including the suggestion that the so-called "extreme Kuiper Belt Objects" that have frustrated scientists for ages may hold the key necessary to prove this mystery planet's existence.
Apologies to Pluto. You were, without question, the highlight of our increasingly insignificant existence.
