Puny Pluto may be out as a planet

[Celebration]

http://www.freep.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20060813/NEWS07/608130598/1009

WASHINGTON -- Ask most schoolchildren how many planets are in our solar system, and they'll tell you nine.

It's been that way for generations, since 1930 when a Kansas farm boy with a passion for astronomy discovered Pluto, the ninth planet.

But soon, there could be only eight. Pluto faces demotion.

At a conference in Prague later this month, the International Astronomical Union, which oversees such matters, is scheduled to consider a resolution that defines a planet.

[xchrom]

1. they had better not!

other wise i will just have to go to prague and kick some astronomer ass!

leave pluto alone!

[Tanuki]

2. Hey! I'm with you!

I felt sorry for poor Pluto when I read that!



However, I'd be glad if they could get rid of the plutocrats!

[xchrom]

6. viva pluto! down with plutocrats!

[Ptah]

9. A picture of Pluto from UCLA Astronomy.

[xchrom]

10. proof there is intelligent life on pluto!

[nytemare]

3. Pluto has a moon that looks like a potato

I have been watching too much "Cosmos" with Carl Sagan.

[shain from kane]

7. That's a big potatoe! n/t

[flyingfysh]

4. These objects care nothing about what people call them

This "argument" about whether Pluto is a planet or not is silly, it's not a scientific argument.

There are lots of objects out there, and none of them care anything about what humans classify them as stars, planets, asteroids, or anything else.

[acmavm]

5. There would still be more than 8. A planet was discovered in orbit

around a star named Pegasus 1 back in 1996:

<snip>
The planet around 51 Pegasi is perhaps the oddest of the bunch. Its mass is at least half that of Jupiter, and yet it orbits just seven million kilometers from its star--less than one eighth Mercury's distance from the sun. At such proximity, the planet's surface should be baked to a theoretical temperature of 1,300 degree Celsius. It whizzes around its star so quickly that its "year" is just four days long.

http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?articleID=000BAF7C-7457-1C76-9B81809EC588EF21
<snip>


And there have been more discovered since then. So if they demote Pluto, which would be a shame I think, there's others to replace him.

[SteppingRazor]

11. Obviously, they're referring to our solar system...

but, yeah, there have actually been plenty of others discovered -- 179, in fact, according to the California and Carnegie Planet Search (exoplanet.org)

[mainegreen]

8. Good luck convincing 6 billion people that Pluto's not a planet.

It's a bit late to change the popular view of that. Hopefully they grandfather in Pluto into a rules that exclude it. IE anything orbiting the sun bigger than X discovered before 1931 that was called a planet is still a planet.

[Bill McBlueState]

12. yeah, and good luck convincing 6 billion people of evolution

The nice thing about scientists is that they're generally able to do the work they have to do even if the general public is a bit slow in coming around.

The word "planet" needs to have a sensible, consistent, and ultimately useful definition. It's not a popularity contest.