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IAU Rules Pluto Still a Planet

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the we-can-all-rest-easy-now dept.

scottyscout writes "NPR reports that Pluto has dodged a bullet. An international panel has unanimously recommended that Pluto retain its title as a planet, and it may be joined by other undersized objects that revolve around the sun. Some astronomers had lobbied for reclassifying Pluto as its so tiny. And at least one major museum has excluded Pluto from its planetary display. But sources tell NPR that under the proposal, to be presented at a big meeting of astronomers in Prague next week for a vote, Pluto would become part of a new class of small planets and several more objects could be granted membership."

8 of 244 comments (clear)

  1. I don't get it by susano_otter · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Why all the controversy anyway?

    Why not fix the "official" number of planets at nine, including the largest, nearest, and most well-known of the Kuyper Belt Objects, and leave it at that?

    Pluto's nature won't change either way, and our understanding of it won't change either way. This kind of legalistic controversy just for the sake of legalistic controversy is getting pretty annoying.

    Traditionally, Pluto has been a planet. Now, I'm not saying tradition trumps everything, but I see no reason why it shouldn't trump meaningless debate.

    Let me know if I've got it all wrong, and there is actually meaningful debate on this topic.

    --

    Any sufficiently well-organized community is indistinguishable from Government.

    1. Re:I don't get it by Billosaur · · Score: 5, Interesting
      Why not fix the "official" number of planets at nine, including the largest, nearest, and most well-known of the Kuyper Belt Objects, and leave it at that?

      Because there's nothing the scientific community loves more than controversy, and this is beginning to rival the great Newton vs. Einstein debate, where some purists were not convinced that Einstein's theories were realistic. Clyde Tombaugh discovered Pluto back in 1930 after a systematic search for planets beyond Neptune. He had to pore through photographic plates, trying to find the tiniest relative shift of an object in the starfield that would lead him to a body that was orbiting the Sun. That he found Pluto was remarkable for the time, and I think all this debate over Pluto's status is a disservice to him. Let sleeping dogs lie, let Pluto remain one of the original nine planets, and let's move on.

      --
      GetOuttaMySpace - The Anti-Social Network
    2. Re:I don't get it by schwanerhill · · Score: 4, Interesting

      Very large paychecks for whom? Astronomers? Hah! I'm an astronomer, so please let me know where those can be found.

      (If you're in astronomy for the money, you're crazy.)

    3. Re:I don't get it by StupendousMan · · Score: 5, Interesting
      Why not fix the "official" number of planets at nine, including the largest, nearest, and most well-known of the Kuyper Belt Objects, and leave it at that?
      Because there's nothing the scientific community loves more than controversy

      No, actually, I (and most of the astronomers in my peer group) do NOT enjoy the ongoing saga. We would like the whole matter to go away.

      The real answer is

      Because there's nothing the media loves more than controversy

      Editors know that "telling people that stuff they learned in elementary school is wrong" can pull emotional strings and get a rise out of some people ... and that leads to profit.

      Sigh.

      --
      Michael Richmond "This is the heart that broke my finger."
      mwrsps@rit.edu http://stupendous.rit.edu
    4. Re:I don't get it by Bender0x7D1 · · Score: 3, Interesting

      Well, it doesn't matter at the moment, but it may matter when we get our butts off this planet and start colonizing the rest of the solar system. Why? Well, we will need a lot of treaties and laws and rules that govern how we handle ourselves out there. For example, we may decide that no one can claim ownership of a planet - kind of like Antarctica. Or that there are certain envrionmental guidelines that apply to planets - no dumping of toxic/radioactive waste.

      However, it may be beneficial to allow political or corporate entities to lay claim to asteroids for purposes of development or mining. In fact, we may state that it is OK to change their orbits for economic gain. Let's decide that we aren't allowed to smash planets (or moons for that matter) into pieces to make mining easier. There are a lot of plans for deflecting an asteroid away from Earth, so can we deflect it to hit Mars instead? It would certainly make it easier to obtain the metals we want if it is already smashed into pieces. Is it OK to deflect it into another asteroid, but not a planet?

      While these may seem like useless things to consider, we have learned the hard way that humans tend to exploit environments once they get their hands on them. It is only after destroying large areas that we decide we should protect what's left. Hopefully, we can create a good system to prevent that from happening with other planets and major solar system objects, while still getting the economic benefits of mining in space.

      --
      Reading code is like reading the dictionary - you have to read half of it before you can go back and understand it.
  2. End of Science and the Modern Age by transami · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Yep, I called it. Many moons ago I said if they rule it's a planet it means science is dead. Real science doesn't label something based on feel good social acceptance, but strives for as much exactness as possible.

    As of now, the modern age is officially over and dystopic post-modern has begun.

    --
    :T:R:A:N:S:
  3. Held together by gravity=yes. Chemisty = no. by mc6809e · · Score: 4, Interesting


    It's been suggested that the best way to decide what is or is not a planet is to determine if the mass is held together the force of gravity or electrostatic forces (like metal bonds).

    If by gravity then it should be considered a planet. If by chemisty then it's just a hunk of rock.

    This makes the most sense to me.

  4. Re:If they have such power,,, by 2short · · Score: 3, Interesting

    It's not a matter of adjusting our definition. It's a matter of having one, which we don't.

    Various people (not generally astronomers) want a strict, reasonable definition of "Planet", but find that these either exclude Pluto, or include a vast number of things no one would really consider a planet.

    Astronomers generally don't care. They know Plutos properties, and don't use "planet" as a terribly specific term. This is purely a laymans controversy. It's significant only because something you learned in grade school was an over-simplification. Experts understand the details, and exactly which over-simplification is better is not very interesting to them.

    But since I'm a layman, my 2 cents:
    Juptier and Earth aren't like each other. They also aren't like anything else in their repsective orbital neighborhoods. There's a whole lot of stuff that orbits the sun at roughly the same distance as Earth, and none of it is much like Earth. Ditto for Jupter and 6 other object whose names you know. There's a whole lot of stuff that orbits at similar distance as Pluto, and quite a bit of it is a lot like Pluto.

      Somewhere in there is my own favorite over-simplification, which kicks out Pluto.