Solar system may swell to 12 planets

Our solar system would have 12 planets instead of nine under a proposed 'Big Bang' expansion by leading astronomers, changing what billions of schoolchildren are taught about their corner of the cosmos.

Our solar system would have 12 planets instead of nine under a proposed 'Big Bang' expansion by leading astronomers, changing what billions of schoolchildren are taught about their corner of the cosmos.

The much-maligned Pluto would remain a planet — and its largest moon plus two other heavenly bodies would join Earth's neighbourhood — under a draft resolution to be formally presented on Wednesday to the International Astronomical Union, the arbiter of what is and is not a planet.

"Yes, Virginia, Pluto is a planet," quipped Richard Binzel, a professor of planetary science at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). The proposal could change, however: Binzel and the other nearly 2,500 astronomers from 75 nations meeting in Prague to hammer out a universal definition of a planet will hold two brainstorming sessions before they vote on the resolution next week.

Besides reaffirming Pluto's status — whose detractors insist it should not be a planet at all — the new lineup would include 2003 UB313, the farthest-known object in the solar system and nicknamed Xena; Pluto's largest moon, Charon; and the asteroid Ceres, which was a planet in the 1800s before it was demoted.
'Minor planets'— the collective description of asteroids, comets and other non-planetary objects would then be known as 'small solar system bodies'.

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