And Then There Were Eight

Last week, Bostonist crowed (prematurely) about a change in the definition of planets that would have added three new ones to the solar system of which Boston (or, more precisely, the State House) is the Hub. But really, that whole twelve planets thing was just a proposal from a secret cabal of mad scientists panel of experts. This morning in Prague, the rank-and-file of the International Astronomical Union rejected the twelve-planet approach and Pluto with it, slimming the solar system to a tidy eight planets. Just as well. We never liked Pluto anyway.