In first grade, I was really mad. Honestly, I was INFURIATED. I had just heard that they had officially reclassified Pluto as a dwarf planet. For me, that meant that the pneumonic device I learned from my Dr. Suess’ book was a complete lie. In reality, the reclassification of Pluto was much more informative and logical than first grade me realized.
Before the reclassification, we saw Pluto as a round object and thus classified it as a planet. But after discovering the surface of the planet as extremely icy (like asteroids) and that it has an extremely small mass, the only real difference was that the object was slightly larger than its Kuiper Belt counterparts. The new classification allows astronomers to group objects that have a large enough mass to be round, but do not possess any of the other characteristics of a planet within our solar system. The reclassification honestly gave me more questions about our solar system and the universe, leaving me eager to learn more about it all. Maybe making me a little angry helped me learn more afterall.
Julian's Solar System Blog 
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