UCL in the News: More bad news for downgraded Pluto

Astronomers have announced yet more bad news for the much-lamented former planet Pluto.

Kicked out of the club of planets last year into a new category of dwarf planet, it is not even the biggest of those, scientists have found. …

Dr Andrew Coates [UCL Mullard Space Science Laboratory] admitted to a tinge of sadness when Pluto was reclassified. "I, like everyone else, had grown up through school thinking Pluto was a planet [but] science has moved on, it's definitely a Kuiper Belt object, and getting that idea across to schoolkids now gives them more of a chance of understanding the solar system in the future."

He said there was no reason to think that Eris was the most impressive object in the outer solar system. "It's certainly possible there are bigger objects out there." …

Alok Jha, 'The Guardian'