Wednesday,  September 26, 2012 • Vol. 13--No. 071 • 14 of 34 •  Other Editions

(Continued from page 13)

magnitude star 38 Aquarii. Be forewarned. You'll need an optical aid, and probably a good sky chart plus lots of patience to see this faint and distant planet.
• Pluto, by the way, is locked into a 2:3 orbital resonance with Neptune. For every two times that Pluto circles the sun, Neptune does so three times. Beyond Neptune, there are a number of trans-Neptunian objects - called plutinos - that are locked into a 2:3 orbital resonance with Neptune.
• Pluto wasn't denied planetary status because it's not massive enough to be a planet. Believe it or not, Pluto - in and of itself - has sufficient mass to qualify. Rather, Pluto was declassified by the IAU because this world doesn't have the heft to "clear the neighborhood around its orbit."
• Tonight - September 26, 2012 - the moon passes fairly close to Neptune on our sky's dome. In 2006, Neptune replaced Pluto as the solar system's most distant planet.


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