Earthlings got their first look at Pluto; it was lovely and grey and had a heart on it! But do you know who doesn’t heart Pluto as much? The brilliant scientist Neil deGrasse Tyson. Tyson had a chat with Stephen Colbert and debated Pluto’s planetary status. Nope, Tyson says, Pluto is still not a planet. But if that weren’t controversial enough, he also says, “Rather than call Pluto a planet, I’d rather take all the four rocky planets and call them dwarf planets.†Yes, that means Mercury, Venus, Mars, and our home, Mother Earth. Gaia. Colbert is just flabbergasted. “To save your skin, just to win an argument on a web page — that is so petty of you — you would turn Earth into a dwarf planet?†Colbert asks. “Just so you wouldn’t be wrong?†That sound you hear is the collective cry of third-graders from around the galaxy.
