Jump to content

Home

Pluto


Recommended Posts

Was anyone else disappointed when Pluto was demoted? Here's some recent news about how to classify the once-known planet.

 

The International Astronomical Union has decided on the term "plutoid" as a name for dwarf planets like Pluto.

 

Sidestepping concerns of many astronomers worldwide, the IAU's decision, at a meeting of its Executive Committee in Oslo, comes almost two years after it stripped Pluto of its planethood and introduced the term "dwarf planets" for Pluto and other small round objects that often travel highly elliptical paths around the sun in the far reaches of the solar system.

 

The name plutoid was proposed by the members of the IAU Committee on Small Body Nomenclature (CSBN), accepted by the Board of Division III and by the IAU Working Group for Planetary System Nomenclature (WGPSN), and approved by the IAU Executive Committee at its recent meeting in Oslo, according to a statement released today.

 

Here's the official new definition:

 

"Plutoids are celestial bodies in orbit around the sun at a distance greater than that of Neptune that have sufficient mass for their self-gravity to overcome rigid body forces so that they assume a hydrostatic equilibrium (near-spherical) shape, and that have not cleared the neighborhood around their orbit."

 

In short: small round things beyond Neptune that orbit the sun and have lots of rocky neighbors.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I've had almost 2 years to get over it.

 

Considering all the trouble this group has had trying to classify certain bodies, I think I'm beginning to understand why they put it off for so long.

 

Yeah, I've known about this for quite a while now.

 

I was hoping you were telling us that it had been promoted again. :(

 

_EW_

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Funny, Ender. I thought the same thing when I first heard last year (was it last year? I think so.)

 

Ender - off topic - is the 2nd series (Ender's Shadow) as good as the first? I've only read books 1-4, and I'm debating whether to read the Shadow series or move on to something different.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

In otherwords they just made it a planet again, only calling it something different. :p
Sounds to me like they don't want to admit that they made a mistake by demoting Pluto in the first place. :roleyess:
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Besides, it was discovered in Arizona (Where I live), and not every state has a local astronomer discover a new planet. :xp:
O rly? Howdy neighbor?

 

Have you been up to Lowell Observatory? I took my kids there last Summer and my son has been quite the astronomy nut ever since. It is a little anti-climatic though ("That's what they used to discover Pluto? Is that rope? Are those old tires? Wtf?") :)

 

Poor Pluto, You'll always be our ninth, sometimes eighth planet from the sun.
Quoted for hilarity :D

 

I'd really like to know why are they the ones who get to decide what is a planet or not? Who gave them the authority?
Did you have someone else in mind? Perhaps you know of a body more qualified?

 

Sorry if this soudns insensitive but... It's just a big (Err... Small) rock floating around like a few billions of something (Kilometers? Parsecs? Lightyears? AU? Miles? :confused:) away... What's the big deal?
Consider that scientists are in the business of finding answers. Not being able to decide how something is categorized is probably akin to having a sore tooth that hurts like the dickens yet you can't seem to leave alone.

 

Sounds to me like they don't want to admit that they made a mistake by demoting Pluto in the first place. :roleyess:
What makes you say that?

 

I'm having trouble with understanding why it *has* to be a planet? I mean not that it would change anything about Pluto itself, only how some spootheads from Earth classify it.
QFT
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Sounds to me like they don't want to admit that they made a mistake by demoting Pluto in the first place. :roleyess:
What makes you say that?
IDK, just guessing (kidding) really. This is Ahto after all. :p
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Im with Prime... the way they keep changing stuff around arbitrarily. What was wrong with leaving pluto as a planet? Just because it has an erratic orbit, is really small, and only has one moon? Unless Im mistaken, all those things classify it as a planet. Jupiter and Saturn being gas giants are less likely to be planets since who knows if theres is actually anything solid beneath all that... gas. >.>

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Archived

This topic is now archived and is closed to further replies.

×
×
  • Create New...