Pluto

In the days before Disney went over to the dark side his studio was in the business of turning out animated movies featuring a set of beautifully observed comic characters- and one of the best of those characters was Pluto- who is the very essence of a certain kind of silly, floppy, gawky, chuckle-headed canine. I like Pluto, he's indelible. But I do wish he didn't come into my head every time I think of Minor Planet 134340.

What possessed Walt to name his dumb dog after the King of the Underworld? Was it deliberate sabotage?

Here's Venetia Stanley- aged 9- and she proposes a wonderfully sinister name for the newly discovered planet and then- a few months later- along comes Walt and he thinks... Well, what does he think? It's never been conclusively shown that the dog was named for the planet but the name was in the air and it would be odd if Walt hadn't realised what he was doing.

I know I'm being sentimental but I wasn't happy about Pluto getting kicked downstairs from planet to planetoid. But according to the new findings its turned out to be rather bigger than we thought. Will it get re-upgraded. Oh please....

Also we've learned it's an active world- tectonic plates moving around- and there's snow. Nitrogen and methane snow.

I'm hungry for the close-up pictures. Why the delay in releasing them? Well, Nasa has to have time to edit out all the alien bases.

Joke. Honestly. If you could see my face...