clearing the neighbourhood

[Jamon Camisso]

Chris Aitken wrote:
> Way off-topic.
> 
> Can anyone explain "clearing the neighbourhood" (as per IAU planet 
> defintion) to me and my ten year-old? We're trying to understand why the 
> flavour-of-the-month is that Pluto is not a planet.
> 
> And, yeah, I have burrowed into a few links in wikipedia.

Take a look here:
http://blogs.nature.com/news/blog/2006/08/iau.html
"[An] earlier definition had required first and foremost that a planet 
be round, then lumped planets that were not “dominant” in their local 
population into a subcategory of dwarf planets. The new definition 
required that a planet be both round and dominant, then put any round 
objects left over into a “dwarf-planet” category."

These two as well:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dwarf_planet
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clearing_the_neighbourhood#Details
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