Silly, empty utterances from Jenn who knows nothing about a subject but writes about it anyway.

May 30
2008

Nine or Eleven Planets?

Posted 4 months ago.
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A young girl out of Montana (whoop whoop!) won National Geographic’s Planet Contest by coming up with a mnemonic to remember the planets’ order. “My Very Exciting Magic Carpet Just Sailed Under Nine Palace Elephants.”

Okay, so I just happen to know the order of the planets by memory and I was stumped when I got to “Carpet.” What planet starts with a C? Well, back in 2006, the International Astronomical Union classed Pluto as a dwarf planet, along with Ceres and Eris. Now we have eleven planets in our solar system. Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Ceres, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune, Pluto, and Eris.

Lisa Loeb recorded a song based off this mnemonic and I just listened to it - now it’s totally stuck in my head! It’s a cute song and an unforgettable way to remember the order of the planets from the sun.

Listen to the song at National Geographic
Take a look at all the planets

By the way… three other objects in our solar system may become classified as dwarf planets: Sedna, Orcus, and Quaoar.

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