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Is Pluto REALLY a Planet?
- Thread starter GobBass
- Start date
The defenition now includes: "the ability to clean it's area of space". So, from that perspective, no, because Pluto's mass is not big enough to clean up the thousands of other icy objects circling in that area.
I don't think it matters if they decide to call it a giant wedge of cheese. It's still just another mass orbiting our sun.
If we let Pluto be a planet then all its little friends will want to be planets too, and we can't keep updating the textbooks.
Even though the experts seem to want to demote it to "dwarf planet" status, I'd wish they would consider taking a page from the unscientific world of law and let it keep its planet status since it had it so long it should be grandfathered.
Geoff St. Germaine
Commercial User
- Aug 31, 2001
- 6,267
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- Owner - St. Germaine Guitars
I'm sure that the reason for the revision of the definition of a planet has to do with the large number of other objects that have been recently found to exist beyond pluto. I don't understand why you would "grandfather" something into a scientific definition. They drew a line a pluto didn't make it. It's science, things change as we discover new things (such a lot of bodies like pluto) and we revise definitions as a result.
Kiwi Kid said:
I'm pretty sure that importing bass gear to Pluto costs about the same as it does to import to Australia though...
according to NAFTA, it's still not a planet but will enjoy all the rights and benifits of having planet status...
Geoff and Cassanova,
How about Planet Emeritus? Or take a page from Prince and it can be the "Heavenly Body formerly known as Pluto the Planet"
The US has successfully warded off the metric system, keeping Pluto a planet should be a piece of cake.
Seriously, can they keep working on a definition that includes Pluto and filters out the stuff they don't want.
Kiwi Kid,
Australia is a whole 'nother world - that would make me want to keep Pluto a planet all the more.
How about Planet Emeritus? Or take a page from Prince and it can be the "Heavenly Body formerly known as Pluto the Planet"
The US has successfully warded off the metric system, keeping Pluto a planet should be a piece of cake.
Seriously, can they keep working on a definition that includes Pluto and filters out the stuff they don't want.
Kiwi Kid,
Australia is a whole 'nother world - that would make me want to keep Pluto a planet all the more.
Geoff St. Germaine
Commercial User
- Aug 31, 2001
- 6,267
- 302
- Disclosures
- Owner - St. Germaine Guitars
dangnewt said:
Well, other people can call it as they'd like. It seems that astronomers are going to classify it as a dwarf planet. I think the problem is that a definition that includes pluto will be bound to include an incredible number of objects in our solar system that are similar to pluto (I think 50 or so). I guess they could define it as being "a celestial body that is in orbit around the sun, has sufficient mass for its self-gravity to overcome rigid body forces so that it assumes a nearly round shape, and has cleared the neighbourhood around its orbit, and pluto".
meh pluto got enough credit it didn't deserve due to their ignorance. i'd say its finally time to put it in its place.
I can see this becoming a Disney movie right now.
Pluto ends up saving the rest of the planets from an exploding sun and ends up being an honorary planet.
Pluto ends up saving the rest of the planets from an exploding sun and ends up being an honorary planet.
Geoff St. Germaine said:
I could live with that.
At minimum, nonscientists and especially the non-astronomical science community should give the astronomers a hard time for while about the planetary flip-flop. You have to make them think twice about who is in or who is out.
Well, they could have grandfathered other things, like the notion that the sun revolves around the earth and that the planet is flat.dangnewt said:
Knowledge in all active fields of research has to be updated and there's no reason for astronomy to be an exception.
Blackbird said:
Good point, if a bit stretched. This is a matter of definition. Not a major scientific revolution. While the IAU is the right body to come up with the definitions, the post below makes me a little less confident in the process and the science behind it. Was a simple majority, or do you need a super-majority to bounce a planet? Inquiring minds want to know!
This is a piece of a blog post from an astronomer who didn't attend that is interesting - Invalid Link Removed
"Less than a third of IAUs members actually came to Prague -just 2500 give or take- and by the end of the meeting when the Pluto decisions were taken, only a fraction of those were present and voting. By all accounts, a tough gang of solar system experts prevailed to dump Pluto from the planetary ranks. But, as the media report, other astronomers say that they have just begun to fight.
Well this sounds more like fun. It reminds me of one of those old-time Democratic or Republican party conventions where the convention actually chose the Presidental nominee of the party through dealing and doubledealing in smokefilled rooms and in cliff-hanging polls of all the delegrations. At those conventions, every delegate got a chance at a microphone to blurt out unscripted remarks, however self-serving and inappropriate. As a kid, I watched those conventions on a big black and white TV with a tiny screen and I really enjoyed them.
So when the IAU next meets, in Rio in August 2009, I will be there. Ready to wheel and deal and to vote. "
