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Definition of Planet to be Announced in September

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the bigger-than-a-breadbox dept.

MasaMuneCyrus writes "After over seven years of debating, the International Astronomical Union announced that it expects to announce the official definition of a planet in September. After many-a-deadlock, they handed the task of deciding exactly what a planet is to a new committee, which includes historians and educators. 'They wanted a different perspective from that of planetary scientists,' said Edward Bowell, an astronomer at Lowell Observatory who is also vice president of the IAU's Division III-Planetary Systems Sciences group. If all goes according to plan, the wording will be proposed in their 12-day General Assembly meeting in Prague."

3 of 200 comments (clear)

  1. anyone want to place bets on by mgabrys_sf · · Score: 3, Informative

    Pluto?

    I've been 50-50 on it myself. I'm a fan of anything Arizona (having lived there), but apart from the moon system, I'm hard pressed to call it a planet.
    If Pluto sticks - then there's probably 100s of Kuiper Belt objects that qualify.

    1. Re:anyone want to place bets on by BaseLineNL · · Score: 2, Informative

      All discovered Kuiper Belt objects are smaller than Pluto except for one: 2003 UB313, also known as 'Xena'. And the discovery of Xena also happens to be the reason that led scientists to question the current definition of planets. So it's practically impossible that 100's of Kuiper Belt objects would suddenly be called planets.

  2. Re:actually I meant... by RsG · · Score: 2, Informative

    It's fission. The only place in the solar system where you get naturally occuring fusion is the sun, and even then it only happens at the very core. If fusion were easy, we wouldn't have such a hard time getting fusion reactors to work.

    --
    Erotic is when you use a feather. Exotic is when you use the whole chicken.