St. Cloud Model Solar System Needs Update
With Pluto demoted to “dwarf” status, the model solar system hanging at St. Cloud State University is going to need some updating.
Next year, when students remodel the main-level museum in the Robert H. Wick Science Building, pint-sized Pluto will be physically taken down.
“It was debated in the literature before, but I think a lot of people held on to the romantic notion, for lack of a better word, that Pluto still was a planet,” said David Williams, planetarium director at St. Cloud State and professor in the Physics, Astronomy and Engineering Department.
The International Astronomical Union this summer downgraded Pluto, leaving only eight recognized planets in the solar system.
