Armed Polite Society

Main Forums => The Roundtable => Topic started by: K Frame on August 24, 2006, 05:43:27 AM

Title: Buh bye Pluto. I'll always think of you as a planet...
Post by: K Frame on August 24, 2006, 05:43:27 AM: 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".
Title: Buh bye Pluto. I'll always think of you as a planet...
Post by: mtnbkr on August 24, 2006, 05:48:14 AM: Isn't Mercury smaller than Pluto? Why wasn't it reclassified?

Chris
Title: Buh bye Pluto. I'll always think of you as a planet...
Post by: K Frame on August 24, 2006, 06:00:50 AM: No, Mercury is a little over double Pluto's diameter.
Title: Buh bye Pluto. I'll always think of you as a planet...
Post by: charby on August 24, 2006, 06:02:50 AM: Sounds like these scientists have nothing better to do.
Title: Buh bye Pluto. I'll always think of you as a planet...
Post by: K Frame on August 24, 2006, 06:05:22 AM: Actually, as astronomers and astrophysicists, they're doing EXACTLY what they're supposed to do.
Title: Buh bye Pluto. I'll always think of you as a planet...
Post by: El Tejon on August 24, 2006, 06:05:35 AM: How can a dog be a planet?

Isn't a dog a sun? The dog star?

El Tejon=scientific marvel
Title: Buh bye Pluto. I'll always think of you as a planet...
Post by: Ben on August 24, 2006, 06:05:45 AM: Doesn't Pluto have tenure by now? How are they gonna fire it without a major court battle?
Title: Buh bye Pluto. I'll always think of you as a planet...
Post by: K Frame on August 24, 2006, 06:07:19 AM: You know, you might laugh, Ben, but I could actually see some people getting pissed enough about this to file a lawsuit.
Title: Buh bye Pluto. I'll always think of you as a planet...
Post by: roo_ster on August 24, 2006, 06:20:28 AM: 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.
Title: Buh bye Pluto. I'll always think of you as a planet...
Post by: Harold Tuttle on August 24, 2006, 06:45:51 AM: heck, once they get out there, they will prolly find Pluto is the cloaked remnants of a Vogon battle star
Title: Buh bye Pluto. I'll always think of you as a planet...
Post by: Headless Thompson Gunner on August 24, 2006, 07:08:32 AM: Quote from: Harold Tuttle
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...
Title: Buh bye Pluto. I'll always think of you as a planet...
Post by: K Frame on August 24, 2006, 07:10:52 AM: "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.
Title: Buh bye Pluto. I'll always think of you as a planet...
Post by: crt360 on August 24, 2006, 10:01:54 AM: Am I going to be retroactively docked a letter grade for my third grade mobile in which I included Pluto as a planet?
Title: Buh bye Pluto. I'll always think of you as a planet...
Post by: K Frame on August 24, 2006, 10:17:45 AM: 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?
Title: Buh bye Pluto. I'll always think of you as a planet...
Post by: crt360 on August 24, 2006, 12:01:25 PM: 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.
Title: Buh bye Pluto. I'll always think of you as a planet...
Post by: grampster on August 24, 2006, 01:29:50 PM: Why don't they just rename Uranus, Pluto. Then we won't have to smirk when we discuss the planets.
Title: Buh bye Pluto. I'll always think of you as a planet...
Post by: Azrael256 on August 24, 2006, 03:26:23 PM: Quote
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.
Quote
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.
Title: Buh bye Pluto. I'll always think of you as a planet...
Post by: Ben on August 25, 2006, 05:15:24 AM: Quote
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
Title: Buh bye Pluto. I'll always think of you as a planet...
Post by: K Frame on August 25, 2006, 05:55:54 AM: Yer all a bunch of morons.

Pluto is where Gort and Klaatu hang out.
Title: Buh bye Pluto. I'll always think of you as a planet...
Post by: mfree on August 25, 2006, 06:20:39 AM: 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...

--
edited for brain fart, bathycenter means nothing but would be "center of ocean".
Title: Buh bye Pluto. I'll always think of you as a planet...
Post by: Brad Johnson on August 25, 2006, 07:51:45 AM: Quote
Yer all a bunch of morons.

Pluto is where Gort and Klaatu hang out.
Darmok and Jilad... at Tanagra

Brad
Title: Buh bye Pluto. I'll always think of you as a planet...
Post by: K Frame on August 25, 2006, 08:00:31 AM: "Darmok and Jilad... at Tanagra"

One of the better episodes!
Title: Buh bye Pluto. I'll always think of you as a planet...
Post by: AJ Dual on August 25, 2006, 09:25:12 AM: Quote from: grampster
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&
Title: Buh bye Pluto. I'll always think of you as a planet...
Post by: Guest on August 25, 2006, 02:53:12 PM: 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.
Title: Buh bye Pluto. I'll always think of you as a planet...
Post by: Spec ops Grunt on August 25, 2006, 02:56:00 PM: I propose we rename Uranus! It shall be called Urectum!

A cookie to whoever gets the reference.
Title: Buh bye Pluto. I'll always think of you as a planet...
Post by: Azrael256 on August 25, 2006, 04:14:25 PM: Quote
I propose we rename Uranus! It shall be called Urectum!
Thank you, Professor Farnsworth.

Chocolate chip, please.
Title: Buh bye Pluto. I'll always think of you as a planet...
Post by: Spec ops Grunt on August 25, 2006, 04:46:58 PM: Dangit. *Gives cookie*
Title: Buh bye Pluto. I'll always think of you as a planet...
Post by: Guest on August 25, 2006, 05:38:08 PM: Quote from: c_yeager
there werent any handy "earth killing" meteors to point at.
Any day now...
Title: Buh bye Pluto. I'll always think of you as a planet...
Post by: Brad Johnson on August 25, 2006, 05:55:58 PM: Quote
It shall be called Urectum
Rectum, hell... damn near killed 'em!

Brad

(ain't it grand the perspective three beers'll give ya!)
Title: Buh bye Pluto. I'll always think of you as a planet...
Post by: Ben on August 26, 2006, 05:30:28 AM: Quote
Rectum, hell... damn near killed 'em!
Preacherman has had WAY too much of an influence on this forum.
Title: Buh bye Pluto. I'll always think of you as a planet...
Post by: Iain on August 26, 2006, 08:52:28 AM: So

My
Very
Easy
Mnemonic
Just
Summed
Up
Nine

Is the order of the day?
Title: Buh bye Pluto. I'll always think of you as a planet...
Post by: DJJ on August 26, 2006, 10:23:17 AM: Yep. The next generation of kids will lie awake all night wondering what My Very Elderly Mother Just Served Us Nine of.
Title: Buh bye Pluto. I'll always think of you as a planet...
Post by: Spec ops Grunt on August 26, 2006, 10:58:56 AM: 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.
Title: Buh bye Pluto. I'll always think of you as a planet...
Post by: K Frame on August 26, 2006, 11:15:30 AM: Another cookie for anyone who gets this reference (without googling it)...

Uranus Hertz
Title: Buh bye Pluto. I'll always think of you as a planet...
Post by: Brad Johnson on August 26, 2006, 12:55:05 PM: Quote
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...
Title: Buh bye Pluto. I'll always think of you as a planet...
Post by: Perd Hapley on August 26, 2006, 04:17:54 PM: 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
Title: Buh bye Pluto. I'll always think of you as a planet...
Post by: Antibubba on August 26, 2006, 06:23:35 PM: Quote
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.
Title: Buh bye Pluto. I'll always think of you as a planet...
Post by: Guest on August 27, 2006, 03:40:20 PM: Quote from: fistful
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.