We could have three more planets in our solar system according to the AP story, “Plan would add planets to solar system”:

The universe really is expanding – astronomers are proposing to rewrite the textbooks to say that our solar system has 12 planets rather than the nine memorized by generations of schoolchildren.

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….

If the resolution is approved, the 12 planets in our solar system listed in order of their proximity to the sun would be Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Ceres, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune, Pluto, Charon, and the provisionally named 2003 UB313. Its discoverer, Michael Brown of the California Institute of Technology, nicknamed it Xena after the warrior princess of TV fame, but it likely would be rechristened something else later, the panel said.

I find it strange that there has never been an official definition of what constitutes a planet. Scientific fields are usually pretty clear on defining and classifying the physical universe. Anyway, it’s fun to have astronomy in the news.