Thursday, February 28, 2008

11 Planets? Who knew?

I'll admit that I'm not as into astronomy as I'd like to be. So I was surprised to discover that there are 11 planets! Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Ceres, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune, Pluto and Eris. Last I heard, Pluto had been downgraded to a chunk of space rock (ok, a dwarf planet). It seems that the 11 member list includes both planets and dwarf planets. A 10-year old girl recently won a contest to create a mnemonic (one of my favorite words!) to learn the names of the 11 planets. Here it is:

My Very Exciting Magic Carpet Just Sailed Under Nine Palace Elephants.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

What a small world it is . . I mean small planet . . No, I really mean small dwarf planet! Is dwarf good english? Should we be calling these "little planets?

Beth said...

I remember being so proud of myself when I memorized the nine planets in 3rd grade. Now I just feel dumb not knowing that there are 11...dwarf, giant, whatever.

Anonymous said...

Holy Quran , Chapter 23 , verse 4

إِذْ قَالَ يُوسُفُ لِأَبِيهِ يَا أَبتِ إِنِّي رَأَيْتُ أَحَدَ عَشَرَ كَوْكَبًا وَالشَّمْسَ وَالْقَمَرَ رَأَيْتُهُمْ لِي سَاجِدِينَ (12:4)

12:4 When Joseph said unto his father: O my father! Lo! I saw in a dream eleven planets and the sun and the moon, I saw them prostrating themselves unto me.
(Translation: Picktall)

Quran says about 11 planets , 1400 years before

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