This is probably not going to placate the fans of Pluto (the denizen of our solar system, not the Disney dog) who are still furious that the International Astronomical Union demoted it from a planet to a “dwarf planet” two years ago, as my colleague Jerry Adler chronicled. But the IAU, which decides these things, has now ruled at its meeting in Oslo that we can forget the whole sorry “dwarf planet” fiasco. Those little bodies that don’t qualify as planets will henceforth be called . . .  “plutoids.”

For those of you for whom the whole Pluto-demoting episode is too painful to recall, a brief recap. In 1992, astronomers David Jewitt and Jane Luu of the University of Hawaii discovered the first of what are now known to be more than 1,000 orbiting the sun beyond Neptune in the Kuiper Belt. Called “trans-Neptunian objects,” they were bound to include at least one larger than Pluto. Sure enough, in 2003 astronomers led by Mike Brown of Caltech found one: at 2,500 kilometers across, “2003 UB₃₁₃” was indeed larger and more massive than Pluto. If Pluto is a planet, this thing should be called one, too.

To head off a torrent of new “trans-Neptunian objects” demanding classification as planets, the IAU voted to define a planet as a celestial body orbiting the sun, massive enough that its own gravity pulls it into a roundish shape, and with enough gravity to have “cleared the neighbourhood around its orbit” of asteroids and other chunks left over from the formation of the solar system. It was the third requirement that doomed Pluto: “Pluto now falls into the dwarf planet category on account of its size and the fact that it resides within a zone of other similarly-sized objects known as the Kuiper Belt,” the International Astronomical Union explains on its website. It is just too wimpy to clear out its orbital neighborhood.

That left only Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune as planets. Joining Pluto as a dwarf planet was Eris—the original 2003 UB₃₁₃. Eris is, appropriately, the Greek god of discord and strife, which is exactly what followed Pluto’s demotion.

Will junking the disrespectful term “dwarf planet” in favor of “plutoid” appease Pluto fans? With only the two members so far, it’s not exactly an impressive group, but astronomers fully expect to discover more of them in the Kuiper Belt.

Related Link: The Girl Who Named a Planet