On this day in 1930, Clyde Tombaugh found Pluto, with no idea that someday a bunch of wags on social media would say they were old enough to remember when it was a planet.

It’s now a dwarf planet, and I don’t think anyone living there cares what we call it, so I’m not sure the furor that kicked up at the time was all that warranted. In fact, the only thing that bothered me much was that kids from then on would learn about their Very Educated Mothers dishing up Nachos instead of Nine Pizzas. It’s just not as funny!

My husband had a great idea for a novel in which the angry Pluto-backing rabble took hostages at the National Science Foundation to get it changed back. I suppose some might find that idea too close to an actual possibility these days, but it was pretty funny at the time and I wish he had written it. I don’t remember what his title was, but I do know that he had plans for the media to disparage the Karens of the movement as Plutocrats, which cracked me up.

One day on Pluto is about a week in Earth time. I don’t remember why I know this, but I do know I think about it occasionally and wonder if I’d get more or less done with a schedule like that. I have a friend who lived in Alaska; I should ask how the longer/shorter days affected her. 

I don’t know much else about it, honestly. I think Bjork wrote a song called Pluto, but I don’t recall it saying much. I imagine there are kids’ books about life on Pluto, but I never read them.  Someone go find me a nice documentary!