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Adding Planets Means New Textbooks, Toys
"They're pretty small," said astronomy director Geza Gyuk of the proposed new planets. "Maybe we can bring in a pingpong ball and that'll do the trick."
The Adler already has a planetary anachronism. When it opened 76 years ago, plaques had already been commissioned for just eight planets. Pluto was discovered a few months laterGyuk doesn't see the Adler adding plaques for Pluto or the three proposed planets because "we just don't have space."
  Jack Horkheimer, director of the Miami Space Transit Planetarium poses in front of a poster of the nine currently recognized planets Wednesday, Aug. 16, 2006, in Miami. Though not approved yet, the 76-year-old lineup of the solar system's planets would grow to 12 under a proposal by leading astronomers. Their recommendation will be decided by a vote of the International Astronomical Union on Aug. 24. Horkheimer's very first book, a full-length cartoon guide to naked-eye astronomy, features an entire chapter on the solar system, the nine-planet version. "My book is out-of-date before it even hits the bookstands," Horkheimer said. "It's kind of like buying a computer. By the time you get it out of the box and get it hooked up, it's already obsolete." (AP Photo/Wilfredo Lee) (Wilfredo Lee - AP) 
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For the several thousand planetariums around the world, this is more exciting than difficult, said Susan Reynolds Button, president-elect of the International Planetarium Society.
"It's not a problem," Reynolds Button said. "We already have the visuals. We already have the equipment to do it. It's just a matter of presenting new data."
Reynolds Button, who used to take planetarium shows to schools, said the addition of three new planets "is a real nice juicy topic to get kids excited about."
Dan Reidy, a sixth-grade science teacher in Moultonborough, N.H., was sitting in his classroom preparing for the new school year and gazing at his model of the solar system. He usually asks his students, "What's wrong with this picture?" The correct answer is that the planet sizes and their distances from the sun are all out of proportion.
If the planet lineup changes, there will be something else wrong with his model.
Reidy will also have to figure out where to place the new planets on a large parachute-cloth solar system map that demonstrates proper size and scale, but he said it was exciting.
The race to change solar system toys more permanently is already on.
Discovery Channel Store spokeswoman Pamela Rucker predicted new 12-planet toys could be in stores in time for the Christmas season.
"We're already starting to work on 12 planets," said McLynn of Learning Resources.
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On the Net:
The International Astronomical Union's question-and-answer sheet on 12 planets: http:/
International Planetarium Society: http:/