CNN/AP: Proposal would increase planets from 9 to 12

[DeepModem Mom]

Proposal would increase planets from 9 to 12
'Big Bang' expansion would keep Pluto in the mix
Wednesday, August 16, 2006


The International Astronomical Union is debating a plan to establish that our solar system has 12 planets.

PRAGUE, Czech Republic (AP) -- Our solar system would have 12 planets instead of nine under a proposed "Big Bang" expansion by leading astronomers, changing what billions of schoolchildren are taught about their corner of the cosmos.

Much-maligned Pluto would remain a planet -- and its largest moon plus two other heavenly bodies would join Earth's neighborhood -- under a draft resolution to be formally presented Wednesday to the International Astronomical Union, the arbiter of what is and is not a planet....

***

The proposal could change, however: ...the...nearly 2,500 astronomers from 75 nations meeting in Prague to hammer out a universal definition of a planet will hold two brainstorming sessions before they vote on the resolution next week. But the draft comes from the IAU's executive committee, which only submits recommendations likely to get two-thirds approval from the group.

Besides reaffirming the status of puny Pluto -- whose detractors insist should not be a planet at all -- the new lineup would include 2003 UB313, the farthest-known object in the solar system and nicknamed Xena; Pluto's largest moon, Charon; and the asteroid Ceres, which was a planet in the 1800s before it was demoted.

The panel also proposed a new category of planets called "plutons," referring to Pluto-like objects that reside in the Kuiper Belt, a mysterious, disc-shaped zone beyond Neptune containing thousands of comets and planetary objects. Pluto itself and two of the potential newcomers -- Charon and 2003 UB313 -- would be plutons....

http://www.cnn.com/2006/TECH/space/08/16/new.planets.ap/index.html

[Massacure]

1. Why would Pluto's moon be a planet? That makes no sense.

Moons should be excluded.

[On the Road]

2. I Believe It is Because

Charon is so large relative to Pluto that is can be considered a double planet system.

Of course, if you go down that road, the moon is large enough to be discussed in the same terms.

[pitohui]

43. earth/moon is also a double planet system

this is not a consistent suggestion at all, it's pretty silly

[Brotherjohn]

3. It's all arbitrary, but accdg to the new definitions, it's not a moon.

They're both planets orbiting each other. It's b/c the center of gravity of the two lies outside the largest one (so they orbit each other). Makes it a "dual-planet" system, sort of.

See Bad Astronomy for a good discussion of the new definitions.
http://www.badastronomy.com/bablog/2006/08/15/congratulations-its-a-planet

In reality, what is and isn't a planet is, as Bad Astronomy argues, just semantics. These things form naturally and don't obey any artificial guidelines we may come up with the classify them. There are infinite paths to the development of astronomical bodies in a solar system, and they are not organized into neat, discrete little categories to make it easy for us to name them.

[KittyWampus]

11. Analogy- Sorting A Pile Of Used Pencils.

you can sort a huge pile of used pencils into categories... by size ranges, points/no points, or chewed/not chewed.

You can argue about the actual categories and argue about falls into designated categories.

But in the end, a pile of used pencils is a pile of used pencils.

[krispos42]

25. Good analogy

:toast:

Excellent!

[truthisfreedom]

36. oh, i get what you're saying. we need new pencils. 8^P

[sofa king]

28. All hail Phil Plait, the the world's best and only Bad Astronomer.

He's a cool dude who has been laying the smack down on bad science for a long time now. His crushing of Fox's moon hoax BS is still the reference standard.

[Xipe Totec]

4. GOP will take credit for 33% growth in solar system n/t

[Vidar]

9. LOL

[Dogmudgeon]

13. ... and declare war on the Axis of Rotation

--p!

[muriel_volestrangler]

16. Yeah, they would declare war on the correct scientific usage

Good catch, Pigwidgeon!

[damntexdem]

23. Will they? Or will they come out against it, and ...

blame it on Bill Clinton?

[Nevernose]

42. Clinton was too busy with Monica to give us 3 new planets

I can hear them already.

[librechik]

5. only if the extra 3 go Republican in time for the election n/t

[Ediacara]

6. Pluto and Charon might go GOP, but I think Ceres and "Xena" are

firmly in the Dem column.

In all seriousness, I'm not a fan of this system. I like the concept that all bodies that orbit a star and are roughly spherical due to their own gravity are considered planets, but in a potential "double planet" system, the smaller one should just be called a moon. Why you may ask? Because this would quickly become planet 13:

[librechik]

20. don't they have to circle the sun rather than be a satellite of a planet

to be called a planet?

speaking of spheroids and spheres, I'm always curious about what people in the know think of Iapetus, a satellite of Saturn.



note the perfect pentagonal craters, and of course the curious planet-encircling ridge that makes the thing look exactly as if it were originally popped ot of a two part mold.

Hoagland had a huge 6 part article last year discussing it,
http://www.enterprisemission.com/moon1.htm

but I am (a bit)skeptical of the guy.

What do you think?

[Ediacara]

40. Hmmm I don't see *any* pentagonal craters

And Hoagland is a fruit. He thinks that Mars is a former Moon of the "Asteroid Belt Planet" that was blown up a few million years ago by a civilization that lived on it that created cities on Mars and our Moon. The Asteroid Belt was probably never a large planet (if it ever was one) as it only contains 4% of the mass of our Moon. It certainly never was large enough to have Mars as its moon.

And as for Iapetus' ridge, here are some ideas, although I haven't studied this enough to know what to make of them.

[Dragonbreathp9d]

7. Yes! Its about time!

We've known about (some of) these planets for a long time and yet we are still teaching our kids that there are only 9 planets in our solar system

[Poll_Blind]

8. Planet Charon? IT'S NOT A CHRISTIAN! THAT PLANET IS DARK-SIDED!

GARGYLES! PSYCHICS! THIS SOLAR-SYSTEM IS TAINTED- I DON'T WANT IT!

PB

[David__77]

10. What a bad headline...

Either it's a planet or it's not. We can change number of "recognized planets," but not "planets."

[Odin2005]

12. Actually "planet" is a well defined term, it's "major planet" that isn't

A planet is any SUMO (sub-stellar massive object) in orbit around a star or brown dwarf. When we use the term "planet" we are actually meaning "major planet." Bodies smaller then major planets (like asteroids and Kuiper belt objects) are "minor planets" or "planetoids."

I really dislike this proposal. Charon is FAR too small to be considered a planet (it's less then 1000 miles wide). Even setting the lower size boundary for major planets at pluto is too low IMO because it would simply cause a glut of big Kuiper-belt objects being called planets, I don't want to end up with 40 major planets with 30 of them being Pluto-clones. I think the definition of major planet is any planet the size of Mercury or larger, this would allow any truely massive Kuiper Belt Objects that may be discovered to be Majors while leaving out the dozens of Pluto-clones I an sure we will find.

[Ediacara]

15. I agree with you here

I kind of like the idea that any body orbiting a star and large enough to be sperical due to its own gravity being a major planet, but I dislike the idea of about 40 of them. I also dislike the concept of Charon being a planet. I understand where they're coming from with the concept of "double planet" but it's also arbitrary what is and isn't a double planet, so I say, let's arbitrarily decide that the larger body in a "double planet" system is the planet and the smaller is a moon.

[krispos42]

24. That will throw things into chaos when...

we discovers double-planets of roughly the same size, or if both have livable atmospheres.

And what happened if we discover a moon the size of Venus with an atmosphere and perhaps life orbiting a gas giant? It is a really big moon because of the ratio of masses? Or is it a duel-planet system because they both have atmospheres?

How about we define a moon-planet system when the common center of mass in within half of a radius of a larger object? And if the c.m. is past the halfway point, it becomes a double-planet system?

Or maybe .75 radius. Some number, at least, that is commonly agreed on.

In this case Pluto and Charon would be a dual-planet system and Earth-Moon would be a moon-planet system.

And if Earth happened to orbit Jupiter, we would be a life-friendly moon.

Hmmm....

Unless we were really far away from Jupiter, then the c.m. might get out far enough to make it a dual-planet system. I'l probably do some math on that after work.

Perhaps that radius multiplier should be based somehow on the the larger object's mass. Larger planet=smaller multiplier, smaller planet=larger multiplier.

If the multiplier was allowed to get above 1.0, then it is possible that the Pluto-Charon system could be termed planet-moon.

Damn, I think I'm thinking too much :-)

[Ediacara]

37. What does an atmosphere have to do with being a planet?

Saturn and Titan both have atmospheres, but I don't think anyone seriously considers Titan a planet despite being larger than two (or five) planets. I think your idea of multipliers is an essentially arbitrary way to make Pluto-Charon a dual planet and Earth-Moon a planet and moon. I would only really be down with a dual planet designation if, say, the ratio of diameters or mass was something like 1.0 : 0.9 or something (also arbitrary, I realize) similar.

I think it's just simpler to define things like:

Planet: roughly spherical body (due to its own gravity) orbiting a star.

Moon: any body orbiting a planet.

Dual planet: two planets orbiting a common center of mass who's diameters (or masses) are roughly equal.

Which would make Charon a moon, but would make Ceres, "Xena," and probably Sedna, Quaoar, and 2005 FY₉ planets.

[krispos42]

47. Trying to make everybody happy :-)

Well, post #17 was of the opinion that a 'real' planet had an atmosphere, and the rest of it me trying to set a standard that won't upset the current designations too much. Of course a mass ratio works as well. I am trying to think of any advantages one has over the other system, but not having any luck. Except simplicity, of course :-) Both are arbitrary, but there's nothing wrong with that.

If the "pluton" concept was standardized as being an minor icy planet, then we can say that Pluto-Charon are a dual-pluton system, which makes calling Charon a pluton planet more palatable than calling it a major planet. Sort of like "Yeah, it's a planet, but it's a pluton planet!"

[Ediacara]

53. I could go with that, BUT I DO NOT LIKE the name "Pluton"

Pluton is an already widely used geological term meaning a mass of magma implaced in the crust. Call them Plutids or Plutonids or Plutoids or Plutins or something other than Pluton.

[opiate69]

26. Why??

"I don't want to end up with 40 major planets with 30 of them being Pluto-clones."

Excuse the snarkiness, but why the hell not? Will it somehow completely throw your concept of the universe out of whack??

[Odin2005]

29. The division between majojar and minor planet is pretty much arbitrary...

...so it makes sene to set it where there will be a reasonable number of major planets.

[Dogmudgeon]

14. I vote for "Planets" and "Plutons"

"Pluton" preserves Pluto's historical place, and allows a new class of objects to be defined.

Pluto is really small, and its co-body (is that a word?) Charon is even smaller. UB313 is significantly bigger, Sedna and Quaoar are about the same size as Pluto, and there could be a large number of "Plutons" out there.

Ceres, the largest of the asteroids, is only about 700 miles wide. There are five or six other asteroids that are big enough to warrant notice, but I'm not sure that they would pass muster as planets.

On the other hand, finding a new planet inside the orbit of Pluto -- that would be news!

--p!

[flaminbats]

17. hmm..IMO there are seven planets

I like the Pluton proposal. But the danger with that could be the discovery of another Jupiter-sized gas planet just beyond the Kuiper belt. If it existed, it probably would have been discovered by now. Yet that's what people said about a ninth planet before Pluto was discovered. But what is a planet? Mercury is slightly larger than the Moon, and Pluto is slightly smaller.

Should size even be a factor? IMO a true planet has a substantial atmosphere..this would include Venus, Earth, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune. A planet shouldn't be considered just another rock or lump of ice orbiting a star! But the density of the atmosphere should play a part in determining if we categorize something as a planet. If Pluto isn't considered a planet, then why should Mercury be one? Just because it is bigger than our Moon? :eyes:

[tabasco]

18. I got to meet Clyde Tombaugh at New Mexico State.

I am in favor of keeping Pluto as a planet!

No scientific basis. I just think Dr. Tombaugh was really cool!

[KansDem]

33. I heard him speak at University of Kansas in 1979 or 1980

He spoke about the discovery of Pluto. Very interesting and fascinating!

I agree...let Pluto be Pluto!!!

[uppityperson]

19. Things ARE improving under Mr.bush, we have more planets than ever

before!

[The Sushi Bandit]

21. They better keep naming them after GREEK gods!

I don't want anything but PURE greek names... in fact we need to rename Jupiter to Zeus, Venus to Aphrodite and Mars to Aries!

I am sick and tired of all these Roman's changing the name into THEIR version of greek gods!

And dont get me started about these proposed hindu, american indian, and scottish name proposals (I do like planet "Shatner" though)

[flaminbats]

22. I have a better idea..

we can rename Xena..Allah and Ceres..Jehovah to show Jews and Muslims that life goes on! ;)

[The Sushi Bandit]

30. That made me PUKE!

like spoiled milk!

[flaminbats]

31. lol..ready to be converted yet? n/t

:hide:

[The Sushi Bandit]

35. Think about it.. they showed up on the scene after the greeks

had already named the heavens! (or at least were the first to write them down)

I do like Zena though!

[flaminbats]

41. pretty soon we'll need to rename Earth..

does Mondas sound nice?

[Nevernose]

45. The Chinese cataloged them before the Greeks, though

On paper. So, to be fair, shouldn't we let the Chinese have first dibs on new deity/planet names?

And as you're probably aware, the official names of many stars are Arabic in origin. They may not have been the first people to look at the stars, but they were the first to make it a science. When Copernicus and Galileo and the rest started seriously looking at the heavens in the Renaissance, they found a great body of work already published in Arabic and many of the names just stuck.

A nonfiction book I'd like to write: A Comparison of Stellar Myths, relating the stories the American Indians told versus the stories that the Norse, Greek, Chinese, Aborigines, Hawaiians, and everyone else. I see snippets of this published in different magazines and star guides, but nothing as a whole that would relate to the amateur as well as the expert.

And I, too, vote for renaming something, anything, to "Planet Shatner."

[krispos42]

48. If you convert, shorter line at the airport!

The regressives want to put a special "Muslims Only" line at the airports for check-in.

Hell, if it's short enough I might convert on the spot. The Muslims can have a little booth right there at the airport for the conversion process, hand out some flyers, sell some Korans and crescent-themed jewlery. Of course if Mike Gallagher has his way, the people at the booth will have to stock a supply of iron-on yellow crescents for all Muslims to wear on their clothing when in public. At least until we put them into internment camps. Are the ones we built for the WW2 Japanese still standing?

Damn, between this and George Allen... well, if God decides to 'call home' Gallagher and Allen by means of a flaming car wreck, who am I to protest Divine Will?

Man, if you listen carefully on a quiet night, you can hear the sound of the regressives' skulls collapsing in on themselves.

http://www.newshounds.us/2006/08/15/fox_news_airs_call_for_muslimonly_line.php

[Endangered Specie]

39. You better just pray they don't name it after Reagan.

[krispos42]

49. NOT FUNNY!!!!!!!!

You can't put ideas like this in their little minds! It will bounce around like a superball until it controls their brains!

Ew ew ew ew ew!

Oh, god, what if they name the Face On Mars after Reagan?!?

Ow ow ow ow ow! Now I need some mental floss...

[sofa king]

27. Yay, Ceres!

The Asteroid Belt has been the wrong side of the tracks in the solar system for too long. I remember arguing in my planetary science class that if it has enough gravity to be round and doesn't orbit something other than the Sun, it's a planet.

Now Bode's Trick will really work. (Well, not really, but it will work better.)

Edit: I guess I'm getting old. It's not a trick anymore, it's a law. There must be a Republican in the Astronomy Department at Cornell.

[sweetheart]

32. how does astrology treat these items?

Are they chartable? Do people read these plutons in the chart?

[KansDem]

34. Gustav Holst must be rolling in his grave...

Add any more planets to the solar system and his famous suite will have to be retitled "Half the Planets."

The Planets

[krispos42]

51. Oh God, that's right...

Well, fire up the paddles. We'll shock him back to live and shove a pen into his hand. Get cracking, Karl! <whipcrack>

[Endangered Specie]

38. I'm suprised that they haven't hired the GOP to help discrimanate

..... between what is a planet and what isn't.

[Akim]

44. Twelve Astrological Signs — One Per Month. Coincidence?

Twelve planets? Excellent. Now there will be one planet for every month. This is the dawning of the Age of Astrology.

[The Sushi Bandit]

46. what would happen if they all lined up in each part of the zodiac??

at the same time! would peace rain down from the heavens?

[krispos42]

50. Better... Reagan would rise from his grave and save the GOP n/t

[ShortnFiery]

52. Excellent!

My view of Our Solar System would be turned upside down if PLUTO was NOT included ... NOT!