Friday 7 December 2018

My Very Energetic Maiden Aunt Just Swam Under North Pier

This is North Pier at Hartlepool, seen from South Pier. It reminded me of the mnemonic in the title of this piece, which is used to remember the order of the planets from the Sun. I always preferred it as a mnemonic because it included the Asteroid Belt (A for Aunt!) The problem now is that Pluto has been downgraded to being a "dwarf planet". Pluto belongs to a second belt of small objects left over from the formation of the Solar System which is called the Kuiper Belt. Pluto's problem was that several objects were found that were almost as big as it but wouldn't be called planets, so it had to be downgraded. Find out more about the Kuiper Belt here https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kuiper_belt or listen to Lord Bragg of Wigton's Radio 4 programme about it https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b08g7ttx I was thinking that the mnemonic should be changed to include K for Kuiper Belt but My Very Energetic Maiden Aunt Just Swam Under North Key should really be Quay for it to work.