Earth's moon could become a planet

Is the moon a planet?

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Many people say the sentence (called a mnemonic) "My Very Educated Mother Just Showed Us Nine Planets" as a way to remember the order of the planets.

Starting from the sun the planets are: Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune and Pluto.

If 2003 UB313, Ceres and Charon are dubbed planets, what new sentence will we use to remember them?

Source: NASA

(SPACE.com) -- If astronomers approve a newly proposed planet definition next week, things could get really strange. Sure, asteroid Ceres will become a planet. Pluto's moon Charon will become a planet.

But we're talking really strange.

Eventually, if Earth and its moon survive long enough, the moon will have to be reclassified as a planet, said Gregory Laughlin, an extrasolar planet researcher at the University of California, Santa Cruz.

# posted by xubayr @ 11:28 AM