Well Dagobah might not be a planet... but Uranus sure is!
Posted on 08/24/2006 7:18:05 AM PDT by Lunatic Fringe
PRAGUE, Czech Republic - Leading astronomers declared Thursday that Pluto is no longer a planet under historic new guidelines that downsize the solar system from nine planets to eight.
After a tumultuous week of clashing over the essence of the cosmos, the International Astronomical Union stripped Pluto of the planetary status it has held since its discovery in 1930. The new definition of what is — and isn't — a planet fills a centuries-old black hole for scientists who have labored since Copernicus without one.
Although astronomers applauded after the vote, Jocelyn Bell Burnell — a specialist in neutron stars from Northern Ireland who oversaw the proceedings — urged those who might be "quite disappointed" to look on the bright side.
"It could be argued that we are creating an umbrella called 'planet' under which the dwarf planets exist," she said, drawing laughter by waving a stuffed Pluto of Walt Disney fame beneath a real umbrella.
The decision by the prestigious international group spells out the basic tests that celestial objects will have to meet before they can be considered for admission to the elite cosmic club.
For now, membership will be restricted to the eight "classical" planets in the solar system: Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune.
Much-maligned Pluto doesn't make the grade under the new rules for a planet: "a celestial body that is in orbit around the sun, has sufficient mass for its self-gravity to overcome rigid body forces so that it assumes a ... nearly round shape, and has cleared the neighborhood around its orbit."
Pluto is automatically disqualified because its oblong orbit overlaps with Neptune's.
Instead, it will be reclassified in a new category of "dwarf planets," similar to what long have been termed "minor planets." The definition also lays out a third class of lesser objects that orbit the sun — "small solar system bodies," a term that will apply to numerous asteroids, comets and other natural satellites.
It was unclear how Pluto's demotion might affect the mission of NASA's New Horizons spacecraft, which earlier this year began a 9 1/2-year journey to the oddball object to unearth more of its secrets.
The decision at a conference of 2,500 astronomers from 75 countries was a dramatic shift from just a week ago, when the group's leaders floated a proposal that would have reaffirmed Pluto's planetary status and made planets of its largest moon and two other objects.
That plan proved highly unpopular, splitting astronomers into factions and triggering days of sometimes combative debate that led to Pluto's undoing.
Now, two of the objects that at one point were cruising toward possible full-fledged planethood will join Pluto as dwarfs: the asteroid Ceres, which was a planet in the 1800s before it got demoted, and 2003 UB313, an icy object slightly larger than Pluto whose discoverer, Michael Brown of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena has nicknamed Xena.
Charon, the largest of Pluto's three moons, is no longer under consideration for any special designation.
bump
When I have great-grand kids and I tell them Pluto use to be a planet, I wonder what they'll say?
Yeah, and diamonmds are a girl's best friend.
So let's see...compare...dogs vs diamonds....
Care to speculate as to which sex contrived those rules?
ping
Shhhhh! Are you crazy? Talk like that on an Evo thread and you'll be burned at the stake as a heretic!
No, Moderator, this was not an attempt to hijack this thread. It was just a piquant piece of cross-threaded humor.
Well Dagobah might not be a planet... but Uranus sure is!
LOL ....... your comment makes FR worthwhile.
:-)
But it's always been a planet. I don't think these guys have much respect for stare decisis! (Pun intended - actually it was the only reason for the post.)
Not bad.
What NASA will discover upon arrival:
It make sense. If Pluto got to be a planet, then why not Goofy? And once Goofy's a planet, where does it stop?!
Now my horoscope is all messed up.
My Very Educated Mother Just Served Us Nachos.
Sigh. Scientists are so subjective.
I strongly disagree. I think the most reasonable decision would have been to accept the first proposal and the idea of terrestrial, gas giants, and dwarf planets (didn't like the name pluton, but dwarf planet would have been fine). This new definition is entirely unacceptable in my book.
It doesn't matter. What counts is what they are called at the UN. Celestial bodies. Things we cannot mine or otherwise disturb.
Also, under this new system of categorization, a "dwarf planet" isn't considered a planet at all. It's bizarre. Only a very small fraction of the world's astronomers voted at all. Hopefully, this awful decision will be overturned soon and we can get something like terrestrial, gas giants, and plutons/dwarf planets, ALL of which should be considered planets. Thank God an intelligent astronomer is leading the charge to overturn this farce.
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