So, We Lose Pluto. So What?

OrnotBitwise

OrnotBitwise

Watermelon
Here's one for all my fellow geeks. I know you're out there.

It seems to me that the astronomers are waxing silly just to avoid demoting Pluto from a planet to a KBO. Or a Pluton, or whatever hellish name they're promoting this week.

Can someone tell me what's wrong with 8 planets instead of 9? Do we really have to get 53 planets just to avoid bumping Pluto? Who the hell cares about Pluto, anyway? And who wants to memorize 53 planets?

OTOH, I do hope that they allow Xena to stand as the canonical name for 2003UB313 . . . ;)
 
I figure it would give me one more thing to say, "We had it so much harder way back in my time!" about...

I mean what else have we got?

1. We didn't have a remote control until I was 7?
2. Shag carpeting was much harder to walk in than today's berber?
 
there can be different designations of planets.

They can all remain Planets and then come up with different names for the types.

Rocky, gaseous, molten and so on.
 
Pluto really ins't a planet. It's just some wayward ateroid or former moon orbiting the sun on a different plane that the real planets, like a jerk. I say we deomte it and it's dopey moon, Charon.
 
Beefy said:
Pluto really ins't a planet. It's just some wayward ateroid or former moon orbiting the sun on a different plane that the real planets, like a jerk. I say we deomte it and it's dopey moon, Charon.
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If it's small enough that you could spit something into orbit, it's not a planet. That's just common sense.
 
OrnotBitwise said:
If it's small enough that you could spit something into orbit, it's not a planet. That's just common sense.
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It doesn't even bother to orbit on the right elliptical plane. And it was closer than Neptune until 1999, so it's not even always the farthest. Think about it, if it were orbiting between say, Saturn and Uranus, they never would have called it a planet in the first place. I think the overzealous clown that found it wanted to call it a planet so bad, that he didn't bother to learn what the hell a planet was before calling it one!!!1!1! I say its not a planet.
 
Who cares about Pluto?

Are you guys kidding? Without Pluto being a planet the Earth will cease to exist as we know it. Everything will fall apart. Science will completely unravel and we will be left with no natural laws.

Oh my god! We can't let this happen. Let's run to Washington and demand that President Bush sign an emergency bill declaring Pluto a planet and protecting it as an endangered planet.

SAVE PLUTO NOW.

Immie

PS I now have a new cause to fight for. Thank you Ornot
 
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OrnotBitwise said:
Here's one for all my fellow geeks. I know you're out there.

It seems to me that the astronomers are waxing silly just to avoid demoting Pluto from a planet to a KBO. Or a Pluton, or whatever hellish name they're promoting this week.

Can someone tell me what's wrong with 8 planets instead of 9? Do we really have to get 53 planets just to avoid bumping Pluto? Who the hell cares about Pluto, anyway? And who wants to memorize 53 planets?

OTOH, I do hope that they allow Xena to stand as the canonical name for 2003UB313 . . . ;)
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We have 8 planets -- I've maintained this thought since I was 12 years old. (I was a child nerd). Pluto is a Kuiper object in close resemblence to a comet; it's not a planet. I say this based on its size, makeup, orbit, and many other factors.
 
Brent said:
We have 8 planets -- I've maintained this thought since I was 12 years old. (I was a child nerd). Pluto is a Kuiper object in close resemblence to a comet; it's not a planet. I say this based on its size, makeup, orbit, and many other factors.
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Now that you're 14 you haven't changed your opinion? :p
 
Desh said:
there can be different designations of planets.

They can all remain Planets and then come up with different names for the types.

Rocky, gaseous, molten and so on.
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Generally speaking, there are two classifications for planets: terrestrial and gaseous (aka 'Jovian').

There are also brown dwarfs. Brown dwarfs are gaseous planets which could have become stars had their mass been greater. However, the line between jovian planets, especially Jupiter, and these failed stars, is hard to define.

Pluto is more like a comet than a planet. It is a ball of frozen gases with an eccentric orbit and it is smaller than the earth's moon. Chances are, Pluto isn't even a native to our solar system.
 
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Well everyone in the know, knew Pluto was just pretending to be a planet.

Now, with a hint of irony, Pluto has been unmasked, in a Scooby-Doo stylee by the scientific crowd (probably resembling the fat one with the glasses) as none other than...Old Mr Jones.

He had devoted his life to dressing up as a planet, in order to bask in the limelight, yes, but more importantly to impress the lady in his life...warrior Princess extraordinaire, Xena. Giddy Up!!!1

BTW.. Pluto? Man-like dog or dog-like man?
 
fyi boys!

CBS/AP) The universe really is expanding — astronomers are proposing to rewrite the textbooks to say that our solar system has 12 planets rather than the nine memorized by generations of schoolchildren.

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 isn't a planet.

"Yes, Virginia, Pluto is a planet," quipped Richard Binzel, a professor of planetary science at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2006...?attr=HOME_1898657&source=GoogleRSSTopStories
 
Sentimentality has no place in science. Pluto is a kuiper belt object as are Xena, Quoar and the rest. I don't want to hear any whining about it.
 
OrnotBitwise said:
Here's one for all my fellow geeks. I know you're out there.

It seems to me that the astronomers are waxing silly just to avoid demoting Pluto from a planet to a KBO. Or a Pluton, or whatever hellish name they're promoting this week.

Can someone tell me what's wrong with 8 planets instead of 9? Do we really have to get 53 planets just to avoid bumping Pluto? Who the hell cares about Pluto, anyway? And who wants to memorize 53 planets?

OTOH, I do hope that they allow Xena to stand as the canonical name for 2003UB313 . . . ;)
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Ah, Pluto was the only planet ever discovered by an American. It's just a bit of American pride. People are also jus tused to having Pluto as a planet...

But to add 53 just to keep the sentiment of Pluto is just ridiculous. We also had to add back one we dropped in the 1800's, Ceres, because it met the new definitions, even though it's really not that large or planet-like.
 
This is again going to become an issue however when we begin mapping out other star systems that may have very different plantetary configurations than our own. When this debate is finished with Xena it will continue later on in other star systems I assure you.
 
I couldn't care less who discovered Pluto. They still get credit for it. It just won't be a planet any longer.... Either that or we start memorizing the list of 62 planets... I better get started.
 
Watermark said:
Ah, Pluto was the only planet ever discovered by an American. It's just a bit of American pride. People are also jus tused to having Pluto as a planet...

But to add 53 just to keep the sentiment of Pluto is just ridiculous. We also had to add back one we dropped in the 1800's, Ceres, because it met the new definitions, even though it's really not that large or planet-like.
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That's true. I'd forgotten that Ceres was originally consecrated a planet and then defrocked. Well, Ceres may be back in the fold next year.

Some of them want a purely mechanical definition, based on appearance, mostly. If it's got enough gravity that it's forced into a roughly spherical shape and orbits the sun, then it's a planet. The trouble with that, though, is the Kuiper Belt. There are so many objects out there that fit this definition that we're going to be up to our tits in planets pretty soon. And what about binary planets? Is the smaller one a moon or do we allow binaries? And so on.

I guess I'm showing my curmudgeonly side too much but this strikes me as really silly. If the place is small enough that an untimely fart might send you into orbit, it's not a planet, dadgumit.

:cuss:
 
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