Did you know that Pluto was discovered by America?
That's right. Pluto was discovered by Clyde Tombaugh in 1930 at the Lowell Observatory in Flagstaff, Arizona.
It is the only planet in our solar system to be discovered by an American. For 76 years, that accomplishment stood uncontested.
Then in 2006, the International Astronomical Union (IAU) based in Paris, France, downgraded the status of Pluto to that of "dwarf planet."
Before that meeting, there was no agreed upon definition of exactly what a planet was. The IAU came up with a definition designed to exclude America's Pluto.
A planet according to the new definition must have cleared all its neighbors from its gravitational orbit, and there are a few large bodies in Pluto's orbit called the Plutinos.
But by that reasoning, Neptune also has some issues.
Neptune orbits within the inner region of the Kuiper belt, a stinking asteroid belt. It clearly hasn't killed off all of its neighbors either.
However, Neptune was discovered in Berlin, not America.
Arizona state Representative Justin Wilmeth, a Republican from Phoenix, said,
In my opinion, a bunch of Europeans got mad that we made this discovery and downgraded it to a dwarf planet.
That's why he created bill HB2477, which will make Pluto the official planet of Arizona.
'There's been some controversy recently of it being downgraded,' Wilmeth told the Arizona House Committee on Government before the committee voted 8-1 in favor of the bill. 'That's not really the point of this bill. It's to honor our state heritage, our state history and our strong astronomy background that we have.'
Wilmeth wants the bill to 'foster discussion and debate about a really cool part of Arizona history.'
And also to shove those Europeans‘ noses in it, I'm sure.
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