Q. Why isn’t Pluto a planet anymore? When did that happen?
A. In “Mission to Pluto: The First Visit to an Ice Dwarf and the Kuiper Belt,” Mary Kay Carson writes: “In August 2006, the International Astronomical Union voted to create a new category of space objects called dwarf planets. The solar system went from having nine planets to having eight, plus three dwarf planets.
“Pluto was a declared a dwarf planet along with Ceres, the biggest asteroid, and a newly discovered large Kuiper Belt object called Eris.” Eris’s first, informal name, was Xena, as in “Xena: Warrior Princess,” a television series.
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