Is Pluto a Binary Planet?

... since the orbit of Pluto crosses that of Neptune and therefore Neptune has not cleared out its region of space yet, and probably never will.

No, the orbit of Pluto never crosses that of Neptune. Really. Sometimes Pluto is closer to the sun than Neputune is, but the two orbits never cross. You have to think in 3D here.

But "clearing the orbit" is a stupid argument, nevertheless. By that measure, we have one planet in the solar system, and that's Mercury. All the others have various debris floating around in their orbits, especially near the Lagrange points 30 degrees ahead of and behind them.
And Mars wouldn't compete for a planetary title at all - its orbit is mostly clear because of Jupiter and Earth, not itself - it's just too small to keep its orbit clear on its own.

I think the actual reasoning behind demoting Pluto is that a camp of astronomers want a fixed number. So you take the classic planets known since the antique, and add Uranus and Neptune because they're too friggin' big to be ignored, and leave it at that. Then you make up rules that would pass your eight and block any others.

Source: http://rss.slashdot.org/~r/Slashdot/slashdotScience/~3/lrTk3jlaqkM/is-pluto-a-binary-planet

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