We construct a compactification Md of the moduli space of plane curves of degree d. We regard a plane curve C ⊂ℙ2 as a surface-divisor pair (ℙ2,C), and we define Md as a moduli space of pairs (X,D), where X is a degeneration of the plane. We show that, if d is not divisible by 3, the stack Md is smooth and the degenerate surfaces X can be described explicitly.
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