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PRAGUE (Reuters) - Scientists from around the world on Thursday approved a new definition of a planet, downgrading Pluto's status to leave just eight classical planets.
After a heated debate, 2,500 scientists and astronomers voted at the International Astronomers Union General Assembly that Pluto, which has been called a planet since being discovered in 1930, would be put into a category of planets called "dwarf planets".
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Isn't Mercury smaller than Pluto? Why wasn't it reclassified?
Chris
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No, Mercury is a little over double Pluto's diameter.
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Sounds like these scientists have nothing better to do.
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Actually, as astronomers and astrophysicists, they're doing EXACTLY what they're supposed to do.
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How can a dog be a planet?
Isn't a dog a sun? The dog star?
El Tejon=scientific marvel
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Doesn't Pluto have tenure by now? How are they gonna fire it without a major court battle?
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You know, you might laugh, Ben, but I could actually see some people getting pissed enough about this to file a lawsuit.
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I expect the PCLU* to sue the pants off those astronomers and win representation of Pluto back in the list of planets with full planetary rights. Then, they'll sue the astronomers to allow gay marriage and free whisky for 12 year olds. On Pluto.
Pluto Civil Liberties Union.
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heck, once they get out there, they will prolly find Pluto is the cloaked remnants of a Vogon battle star
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heck, once they get out there, they will prolly find Pluto is the cloaked remnants of a Vogon battle star
I'd prefer they spend their time figuring out how to get there rather than arguing about what to classify it. Ain't my life, tho...
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"I'd prefer they spend their time figuring out how to get there..."
Uhm... They have figured that out, and are on the way. A probe launched earlier this year. It'll take nearly 10 years to get there.
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Am I going to be retroactively docked a letter grade for my third grade mobile in which I included Pluto as a planet?
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No, but you will have to retake Science 101 in order to maintain your high school diploma.
Someone brought up a very good point on another board...
One of the reasons that Pluto is being excluded is because its orbit transverses Neptune's.
If that's the case, why isn't Neptune being delisted?
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Pluto will have its revenge. One day, when nobody is looking, it will use its transverse orbit to smash Uranus to bits. Or is it Neptune? Which ever.
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Why don't they just rename Uranus, Pluto. Then we won't have to smirk when we discuss the planets.
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If that's the case, why isn't Neptune being delisted?
Because Neptune's orbit lies in the same plane as the rest of the planets. Pluto is a remnant from an earlier phase of the development of the system (pre-other 8 planets) and has an orbit with a pretty good tilt to it relative to the rest of us. heck, once they get out there, they will prolly find Pluto is the cloaked remnants of a Vogon battle star
Bah! Nonsense! They'll find the remnants of a second Grebulon ship that colonized Pluto for a reason they can't remember.
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Bah! Nonsense! They'll find the remnants of a second Grebulon ship that colonized Pluto for a reason they can't remember.
Wrong again. They'll find that the Star Trek Next Generation crew used a gravimetric diversification beam to purposely change Pluto's orbit and introduce planetary multiculturalism as per StarFleet Diversity Directive J-15437C (the one right after the one where they put men in dresses).
Edited becuz i cant spel
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Yer all a bunch of morons.
Pluto is where Gort and Klaatu hang out.
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Pluto... smaller than our own moon, orbiting with a bunch of other detritus (Orcus, Ixion), can't even run around with it's own moon (Charon) without the [strike]bathycenter[/strike] barycentre (center of gravity) being outside it's sphere (Pluto and Charon pirouette around a point in empty space)...
...not very planet-like to me. Now, if Triton hadn't been captured by Neptune, there likely would have been a mercury-sized ninth planet by now because it's likely large enough to gather all the plutinos (pluto orbit objects).
Then there's Sedna and 2005UB313, but I digress...
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edited for brain fart, bathycenter means nothing but would be "center of ocean".
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Yer all a bunch of morons.
Pluto is where Gort and Klaatu hang out.
Darmok and Jilad... at Tanagra
Brad
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"Darmok and Jilad... at Tanagra"
One of the better episodes!
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Why don't they just rename Uranus, Pluto. Then we won't have to smirk when we discuss the planets.
That is an excelent idea! You should e-mail the IAU.
The main problem is that they're likely to find dozens, if not hundreds of "Plutons" or "Large KBO's" (Kuiper Belt Objects), in the future, and saying the Solar System has hundreds of "planets" is kind of silly&
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Our definition of a "planet" is completely arbitrary. The only reason Pluto doesnt count as a planet is because a bunch of scientists in an utterly valueless discipline needed to get into the newspaper, and there werent any handy "earth killing" meteors to point at.
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I propose we rename Uranus! It shall be called Urectum!
A cookie to whoever gets the reference.
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I propose we rename Uranus! It shall be called Urectum!
Thank you, Professor Farnsworth.
Chocolate chip, please.
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Dangit. *Gives cookie*
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there werent any handy "earth killing" meteors to point at.
Any day now...
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It shall be called Urectum
Rectum, hell... damn near killed 'em!
Brad
(ain't it grand the perspective three beers'll give ya!)
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Rectum, hell... damn near killed 'em!
Preacherman has had WAY too much of an influence on this forum.
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So
My
Very
Easy
Mnemonic
Just
Summed
Up
Nine
Is the order of the day?
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Yep. The next generation of kids will lie awake all night wondering what My Very Elderly Mother Just Served Us Nine of.
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My
Very
Elderly
Mother
Just
Served
Us
Nothing!
I memorized the planets without the stupid rhyme anyway, no skin off my back.
Pluto dosent even deserve planet status anyway. We should thow all our garbage and nuclear waste there.
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Another cookie for anyone who gets this reference (without googling it)...
Uranus Hertz
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Uranus Hertz
Yours would too if you had five kids and spent your life bent over sideways in a blue funk all the time.
Brad
(top that, oh Master of All References Vague! )
p.s. - Dilbert is a wuss...
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Funny. I made it through two years of high school physics without ever hearing any mnemonic or being asked to name all planets in order. Heard a good one today on Wait, Wait, Don't Tell Me!
Many
Virgins
Enter
My
Jaccuzi,
Sighing
Uncontrollably,
Nightly
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I propose we rename Uranus! It shall be called Urectum!
Thank you, Professor Farnsworth.
Chocolate chip, please.
After mentioning "Urectum", I don't think I want a chocolate anything.
*********
I'm not surprised this is happening-plutonic relationships can be very complicated.
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Funny. I made it through two years of high school physics without ever hearing any mnemonic or being asked to name all planets in order.
I made it through two years of English without having to name the planets in order eaither. I guess we should have taken astronomy.