First sign of confusion already?

We're not that far into the first day of the general availability of the IAU's draft resolution for the definition of a planet and, already, there seems to be signs of confusion.

Alok Jha, writing for The Guardian, says:

If the ideas are approved at the general meeting of the IAU in Prague next week, schoolchildren will, in future, have to learn that the solar system has 12 planets: eight classical ones that dominate the system - Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Neptune and Uranus - and four in a new category called plutons.

These are Pluto, its moon Charon, a spherical asteroid that sits between Mars and Jupiter called Ceres, and an object called 2003 UB313 but nicknamed Xena by American astronomers who found it.

That's not quite right, Ceres won't be a "pluton", the idea is that it will be known as a "dwarf planet". As well as the draft resolution saying this:

We recognize that Ceres is a planet by the above scientific definition. For historical reasons, one may choose to distinguish Ceres from the classical planets by referring to it as a "dwarf planet."

the question and answer sheet that goes with it is also quite explicit about it:

Q: Is Ceres a "pluton"?
A: No.

If a science correspondent is getting this wrong you've got to wonder how the public at large will comprehend it.

File Under: IAU, Pluto, Plutons, Definition of a Planet.