Nearest Planet

Recently I asked a graduate of Princeton what was the the planet closest to Earth. He was the top of his class. A genius at 21.

"The sun." He answered within a nano-second.

"The nearest is Venus."

"Isn't that a moon?"

"No, it's a planet." Only the once-planet Pluto had been rejected from the list of heavenly bodies. "The Sun is a star."

"Then why's it's so big?"

It was obvious that he had never been taught anything about the universe. His major was finance. He wanted to be a stock broker. His father had a job for him lined up at an investment firm. His economic soul was a belief in the return to 2006.

"And there's no way the Sun is a star."

His ignorance was bliss and he wasn't alone. I asked several more of his friends the same question. None of them gave the right answer and I thought that I might be wrong. Maybe the Sun is not a Star. After all Pluto is no longer a planet. Only a frozen asteroid. It's out there somewhere.