So, 8 it is?

The feud about the number of planets is starting to calm down, as New Scientist reports that the latest, and so-far best received, proposal is to demote Pluto and simply say that the definition of a planet is a significantyl large object which is “the dominant body in its orbital zone”.

This makes me wonder what happens if we discover twin planets, where two planets orbit one another, as well as their sun.

It also makes me wonder what the new mnemonic is going to be for the solar system. “My Very Excellent Mother Just Sent Us Nine Pizzas” used to be the trick to remember the order of the nine-planet solar system (Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune, Pluto), but obviously the sentence will not make any sense if Pizza is omitted. A recent Language Log article actually set out to construct a mnemonic for the original proposition that included thirteen planets: My Very Excellent Mother Could Just Send Us Nine Cheerleaders Playing Xylophones. I remain waiting for their suggestion about the non-Pluto mnemonic.