NASA to Add 129 New Planets to the Solar System
Posted June 26 2025
WASHINGTON, D.C. — After completing a major multiyear-long inquiry into the taxonomic classification of celestial bodies, NASA announced that it would be reclassifying 129 orbiting bodies in the Solar System as planets, bringing the total count to 137. The move was sparked by a series of popular online protests in 2021 about Pluto’s demotion to dwarf planet status in 2009 after a clip of Neil DeGrasse Tyson arguing for it resurfaced and went viral. “Happy now, you stupid fuckers?” jeered Acting NASA Administrator Janet Petro. “We loosened the requirements to be considered a planet just so your favorite chunk of rock and ice could join the cool club again, and now everyone and their mother can call themselves a planet,” said an enraged Petro, audibly slurring her words as she glared menacingly at an audience. In order to allow in Pluto, with its irregular orbit and minuscule size, 129 other asteroids found in the Kuiper Belt and in the Asteroid Belt between Jupiter and Mars also had to be included. Petro also complained that NASA was struggling to come up with names for all the new planets, “hav[ing] to dive deep into obscure Roman mythology to find absolute nobodies like Cardea, the goddess of door hinges.” At press time, an exhausted NASA announced it was just going to let all the celestial bodies self-identify as “whatever the hell they want.”