What's in a name? For the planet formerly known as Pluto, not much.
Following last month's decision by the International Astronomical Union (IAU) to strip Pluto of its planetary status, the icy rock now has a new, not-so-catchy moniker: Asteroid Number 134340.
The IAU's decision to demote Pluto to a dwarf planet—a round, celestial body that orbits the sun but isn't a satellite to any other celestial body—sparked protests, outraged blog posts and Internet petitions.
Even with the name change, the IAU doesn't expect anyone to refer to Pluto differently—nor do they want them to. "134340" is strictly for the IAU's Minor Planet Center catalog of numbered objects with orbits.
As for "Xena"—the name planet guru Michael Brown offered for his discovery of a distant, icy rock that reignited the Pluto debate—it, too, has a new name: Eris, from the Greek goddess of discord and strife.
In other Pluto news, New Horizons, the spacecraft destined to rendezvous with the former planet in 2015, recently snapped a photo of Jupiter. Astronomers say it's only a taste of what's to come when the craft does a close fly-by in February 2007. –Erin McCarthy
No Laughing Matter:
Pluto has been renamed Asteroid Number 134340, but the International Astronomical Union says the new name is just for its records.