IAU's definition 5A just passed - the one that excludes Pluto as a planet. It also excludes Earth and Jupiter because their zones are not cleared (NEOs, Trojans, respectively).The scientists obviously know about the NEOs (Near Earth Objects, I believe, which are asteroids in orbits that intersect Earth's orbit) and the Trojans (objects in Jupiter's Lagrange points, which are by definition significantly influenced by Jupiter's gravitational attraction.) Obviously this resolution is a bit too vague, unless they've defined "cleared the neighborhood around its orbit" to mean cleared of objects that are not significantly influenced by its gravitational attraction. Either way, seems to me that NASAWatch is just being argumentative, instead of helping the (often confused) media understand the true meaning of the resolution. Thanks for providing such a valuable service, Keith!
Pretty obvious I don't care about this planet mumbo jumbo, isn't it!?!
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