I just heard from a guy who is in Prague for the IAU conference, spending much of his time involved in the whole "what's a planet?" debate. He said the majority of the people at the meeting are opposed to the definition of planet proposed earlier this week because it abolishes the definition of planet which has been used in the last 2500 years or so, and it is in fact not a definition of planet but a mess of sub-definitions and special cases to obtain what some wanted (i.e. Pluto and "Xena" as planets, Pluto-Charon as double planet...) Then I read in Space.Com that another proposal has been put forward that would reclassify Pluto as something called a dwarf planet leaving us with 8 "real" planets (in which case I've been right about agreeing with Brian Marsden and the Hayden all along <grin>). Of course this is going to cause havoc for those publishers and toy makers that are already proceeding with plans to change their products to 12 planets (http://www.usatoday.com/tech/science/space/2006-08-16-planets-textbooks_x.ht...). One item (that I think was meant to be funny) I read today noted that since the Moon is receding from the Earth and since the 1st IAU proposal used center of mass to define planethood, then the Moon will eventually be a planet (albeit in a few billion years). And the beat goes on... Patrick p.s. for Utahns, "Planet" Ceres rises about 9 this evening and transits about 1:30 tomorrow morning.