Pluto has been plutoided!

re: Pluto has been plutoided!

mowgli — Mon, 24 Nov 2008 11:52:44 GMT

pluto is not a planet for sure!! it's been proven by scientists, that pluto (now known as plutoid) is a large asteroid, that's all!!

Pluto is too small to be a planet. and plus it takes too long to orbit around the sun.

re: Pluto has been plutoided!

normguarni — Wed, 02 Jul 2008 13:25:28 GMT

Isn't consistency the basis for science? Pluto is no more a planet than plutonium is an element....of course I'm being facetious....it fits the definition other than the "past uranus" definition. Therefore, if, by some miracle, we've managed to miss an 80,000 mile diameter KBO and find it now, it would be defined as a "plutoid." It's just getting stupid. Round and no fusion: it's a planet. Period. If there are another 10,000 of them, wellllll...the mnemonic is going to be a novel! Works for me. Get your act together IAU....just because you CAN do something, doesn't mean you SHOULD do something.

re: Pluto has been plutoided!

whatifweknew — Wed, 02 Jul 2008 03:58:15 GMT

Greetings From the Twisted and Bored

Excuse me for thinking too much, but if we actually reduce the number of planets to 8, and we take into consideration that the eighth element is oxygen, then one could say that our solar system is nothing more than a large( in our view ) oxygen atom with a plethora of stray electrons, or "plutoids".

Considering that the only publically known inteligent life form ( excluding myself of course ) in our system wouldnt survive without oxygen, you could come up with an endless, and needless superabundance of reasons why this would be feasible.

Just leave well enough alone befor someone with more imagination than me comes up with something even more ridiculous.

re: Pluto has been plutoided!

cyberdoc — Mon, 30 Jun 2008 03:12:33 GMT

Hello,

Assuming that I have shared in the typical educational experiences, a planet is a spherical body with gravity, and it may or may not have a moon. A moon is a body that orbits around another body called a planet. Things will get a little tricky when we discover planets orbiting around each other (binary systems).

My children will be raised knowing that there are at least 9 planets, and Pluto will be in that list. The IAU can do whatever it would like -- the purpose of language is to convey meanings and understandings from one person to another. If I ask someone outside of astronomy circles if they heard about the new probe heading to the planet Pluto, they will know what I am talking about.

If it is determined that there will be more than 9 planets, then bring them on! I enjoyed the analogy above concerning the periodic table, and the logical ramifications. I would rather have an accurate description of our physical universe than some memory requirement.

To me, this grief about the dwarf planet likens to the push in the 70's and early 80's to switch the United States over to the Metric system. Inches and miles are still found here.

Christian

re: Pluto has been plutoided!

Sirius — Mon, 23 Jun 2008 23:39:53 GMT

The correct form of the URL of Dr. Buie's webpage that I cited above is here.

Truncated as above it takes you to a dud page. Sorry.

re: Pluto has been plutoided!

Icepir8 — Mon, 23 Jun 2008 02:58:38 GMT

Then by stern deffinition Eath's Moon is a planet.

It dose not truely orbit the Eath but is in a interlocked orbit with the Earth around the Sun.

Cool!

re: Pluto has been plutoided!

erudio scientia — Sun, 22 Jun 2008 20:38:07 GMT

To All

This all seems to me to be a tempest in a teapot. There are only three types of bodies in the solar system: those that are predominantly gaseous, those that are predominantly rocky and those that are predominantly icy. All other labels and designations are just semantic arguments. I don't really care what they call Pluto, Eris, Ceres or any other object in the solar system. I freely admit that it did until this March. I was in the camp with Neil deGrasse Tyson that Pluto did not deserve to be a planet for the reasons cited by him in an article he wrote on the subject. I will assume that most of you are famiiliar with these points and not rehash them. They are still all very valid points. Dr. Stern also makes some very good points. But I say put the matter to rest and move on. The IAU, which is a body of many qualified experts, has made a decision. I have no quarrel with it. Individuals may disagree, but the body responsible for the decision has spoken. While Dr. Stern is certainly an expert in the field, he is but one.I suspect that much of the continuing debate is fueled by emotional attachments. I changed my mind to a position of indifference in March because of a comment by a planetary science who spoke up at meeting during the National Science Teacher's Association conference this past March. My opening two sentences are in fact a paraphrase of her comments. What is being debated in inconsequential.

re: Pluto has been plutoided!

Sirius — Sun, 22 Jun 2008 05:48:28 GMT

Until today I thought I was the only extremist on the geophysical side of the debate who believes that even moons are planets (some moons, that is, not, say, Phoebe, Hyperion, and others of their jagged ilk). But today I read Marc Buie's definition on his web page at <www.boulder.swri.edu/.../planetdefn.html>, and I exulted. Because the logic of the situation unavoidably takes us there. If we accept the spherical criterion as the baseline, then our solar system could well have dozens, maybe hundreds, of planets, and God knows what else is beyond. We need the widest, simplest possible definition, and we have to be prepared for the deluge of plentiful, cheap (as one respected scientist has been heard to call them) planets which will follow. If we cannot use "planet" as a generic term, then what will it be? The circumlocution "planetary body"? Or maybe Mel Brooks's classic offering, "spaceballs"? Personally, I prefer "planet".

re: Pluto has been plutoided!

Antitax — Fri, 20 Jun 2008 08:28:29 GMT

We might shorten a planet's definition even more and just call it: fusionless ball. This simplicity would contrast sharply with the IAU's convoluted rule.

re: Pluto has been plutoided!

Speed Racer — Fri, 20 Jun 2008 03:57:44 GMT

In light of the IAU's questionable decision, I have decided to reclassify those associated with it as "Astronomeroids".