Planets can go up as well as down

The real estate market was aghast at the news that following on from the International Astronomical Union's redefinition last week on planetary or smaller bodies in our solar system they are now looking to take Pluto out of the main planet league, with suggestions that it should be redesignated a "dwarf planet" or "orbiting body of diminutive stature" for the more politically correct. Everyone always picks on the little guy. A spokesman for the Federation of Islamic Fundementalist Astronomers described this as a typical Western infidel bullying tactic against the weak.

To qualify as a planet a body must now:

"be in orbit around the sun

be large enough that it takes on a nearly round shape

have cleared its orbit of other planets."

Since Pluto's orbit overlaps with Neptune it is disqualified, thus confirming that even in space there is a serious snobbery over properties which are only semi-detached. The news has caused a slump in property prices on Pluto. However it isn't all bad news - J-Lo's arse has now officially under the new rules been recognised as a planet, while Dolly Parton's breasts failed narrowly to qualify because they interfere with each other's orbits.

The IAU will have a follow-on meeting where they will discuss how the remaining planets will be graded and described, principally along the lines of which cool movies they have starred in. So it is thought Mars will obtain a very high "mega cool planet" status from IAU scientists because it has been in so many cool stories and movies, while Earth will likely end up with the simple description "mostly harmless". Moves to have the planets Kronos and Vulcan added were narrowly defeated when it was pointed out they only existed in Star Trek.