So do we have 9 or 12 planets?

Much-maligned Pluto would remain a planet and its largest moon plus two other heavenly bodies would join Earth's neighborhood under a draft resolution to be formally presented Wednesday to the International Astronomical Union, the arbiter of what is and isn't a planet.

"Yes, Virginia, Pluto is a planet," quipped Richard Binzel, a professor of planetary science at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.


Besides reaffirming the status of puny Pluto whose detractors insist it shouldn't be a planet at all the new lineup would include 2003 UB313, the farthest-known object in the solar system and nicknamed Xena; Pluto's largest moon, Charon; and the asteroid Ceres, which was a planet in the 1800s before it got demoted.