Well it had to be expected really: astronomers are not entirely happy with Pluto being demoted from planet status. Quite a lot of them are angry about what seems to be a ridiculous attempt at rewriting history and textbooks. Its good to se that i am not alone.

One bone of contention seems to arise from the fact that only 424 of the 2,700 astronomers an the IAU conference were actually present for the vote. Thats only 4% of the 10,000 astronomer IAU membership. Even the chairman of the IAU, Professor Owen Gingerich, was unable to vote as he was absent. He told the BBC that he would to be talking about electronic voting in future.

Added to this seems to be that one subgroup of planetary astronomers known as dynamicists have been able to sway events in the past ten days somewhat. It seems that polarisation of opinion during the debate caused more people to turn up to vote who were trying to actively enforce one view whilst other people had already left thinking that the whole matter was going to be discussed and dealt with in more detail.

It sounds to me like there may yet be a reprieve for Pluto but we’ll have to wait a while before that happens. In the meantime, don’t go rewriting your science books just yet.