Pluto, demoted two years ago from a planet to a ‘dwarf planet’, has another moniker. Pluto, it seems, is now a ‘plutoid’.

Yes, the International Astronomical Union is at it again. In an unexpected development (see comments), the IAU’s executive committee has approved the term ‘plutoid’ for the following bodies: “”https://www.iau.org/public_press/themes/pluto/“>Plutoids are celestial bodies in orbit around the Sun at a distance greater than that of Neptune that have sufficient mass for their self-gravity to overcome rigid body forces so that they assume a hydrostatic equilibrium (near-spherical) shape, and that have not cleared the neighbourhood around their orbit.” Yeah, that.

This all of course follows the outcry in 2006 (Nature story here, subscription required [Update: our blogging on the subject, though, is free to all…]) when the IAU kicked Pluto out from full-fledged planetary status. The newly designated plutoids include two objects currently: Pluto and the other big icy object that is known to orbit out there, called Eris. Ceres, which meets the criterion of size, doesn’t qualify since it orbits in the asteroid belt. Got it?

Not all planetary scientists are thrilled. Alan Stern, NASA’s former science chief who led the team that discovered two moons of Pluto, told the Associated Press: “It’s just some people in a smoke-filled room who dreamed it up….Plutoids or hemorrhoids, whatever they call it. This is irrelevant.” David Morrison of the NASA Ames Research Center told Space.com: “This seems like an unattractive term and an unnecessary one to me.”

What do you think? Leave a comment below.

Image, of Pluto and its largest moon, Charon: Dr. R. Albrecht, ESA/ESO Space Telescope European Coordinating Facility; NASA