It’s Fun to Know: How to Keep Your Planets Straight

When I was in school, my science teacher taught me and my classmates a mnemonic device to help us remember the order of the planets: My Very Educated Mother Just Served Us Nine Pizzas (Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune, Pluto).

Now, with the addition of two dwarf planets to the lineup, this memory trick is outdated.

No matter to young Maryn Smith of Great Falls, MT. She recently won a National Geographic contest to develop a new mnemonic for the planets in our solar system, including the dwarves. Her winning entry was inspired by the Disney animated film Aladdin: My Very Exciting Magic Carpet Just Sailed Under Nine Palace Elephants.

Now if we can just remember that "Carpet" stands for Ceres and "Elephants" stands for Eris!

[Ed Note: Charlie Byrne is Associate Publisher at Early to Rise. Sign up for e-mail delivery of his blog and get edgy and useful ideas on copywriting, marketing, and other category-defying topics.]