So what exactly counts as a planet? The experts will be voting on that next week and expand the solar system could expand by more than a third or we might loose Pluto.

Mike is campaigning for Pluto and I listened to astronomers debate the issue with an odd urgency on the radio over something that won't actually change the number of rocks floating around the solar system.

I'm oversimplifying it, but the rules seem a little odd by defining a planet as something large enough it's gravity holds it in a round shape and orbits the sun and not another planet. It feels a bit like someone took the 8 major planets and tried to come up with a definition to fit them, when some of Jupiter's major moons have more in common with Earth or Mars then Jupiter itself does.

It's not a bad definition, but the resistance to let the other rocks into the Planets Club on a historical basis runs against science's principals. If the definition loosens up and we end up with dozens of planets, I don't think it will change anything. We'll just calling start calling the old ones the "major planets."

It's all semantics. Just as Burger King doesn't serve small drinks. They only have medium, large and extra large. The medium is still the small, only the names are changed.