Slashdot Mirror
Pluto Making a Comeback
anthemaniac writes "Space.com reports that the American Astronomical Unions Division of Planetary Scientists recognizes the IAU's authority to make a new planet defintion but expects it to be altered. Separately, 300 astronomers have signed a petition saying they won't use the definition. All this stems from the discontent over how only 424 astronomers voted on the proposal that demoted Pluto. Looks like this little dog is on the comeback trail."
it seems like any vote on the future of pluto ought to wait till after the prob gets there in a few years. We do not even have good pictures of the planet, or a lot of solid date (if the wikipedia entry is good). I say wait to make any changes until than, anything else would be jumping the gun
Mikey
I've always been the kinda guy to fall for the girl dressed like an eskimo.
Can't say I disagree with keeping the old definition, when they had to change the definition of a planet to exclude Pluto.
-uso.
What you hear in the ear, preach from the rooftop Matthew 10.27b
They wont be changing that basic lesson everytime there is a fight in astromy associations.
Wincopy
The publishers are loving this.
Committees vote on YOU!
they pissed off a LOT of people.
What more can you say?
...in other news today, doctors tried to demote any penis that is not at least 7 inches long to 'dwarf penis' status.
If they were real scientists, they'd accept the new designation. That's how science works. You modify your model of the universe as new information becomes available. Clyde Tombaugh found the first of an unknown class of objects because Pluto happened to be the closest and easiest to see. They just called it a planet because they lacked the information we have. But now we know about the Kuiper Belt, and have adjusted the definition of Pluto accordingly. Mode me a troll, but stop with the sentimental bullshit. Rather than :losing" a planet we've gained a whole new neighborhood of the Solar System to explore.
Like... for once and for all? I mean, first we went through a lot of time being taught that Pluto is a planet. Then, word breaks out that Pluto might not be a planet. After a few weeks, Pluto is no longer a planet. After about a week, we learn that Pluto might indeed be a planet. It's been a tough ride really. IIRC, "it's harder to unlearn than to learn".
. o O ( TwO hEaDs ArE mOrE tHaN oNe... )
that Pluto seems to be gaining mass, and its orbital plane is slowly converging with the 8 classical planets. By next week it will be big enough for more news.
So... What is a Planet Again?
the issue centers on one the IAU itself says it hasn't addressed with it's new definition of a planet: extrasolar systems. as new telescopes come on line with more resolving power, our bestiary of planets is going to grow by leaps and bounds. it will render the debate over pluto moot
i think a definition of planet should be:
-round, with a significant atmosphere
-this is distinct from a gas giant, which should be considered closer to stars than to planets (round, mostly gas: really just stars without enough critical mass to ignite fusion)
-and distinct from a moon (no atmosphere, but still round)
-asteroids, comets, etc make up the miscellany
and notice, most importantly, i said nothing about what something orbits. what something orbits is really secondary in consideration to what something is composed of. if we find an earth-like "moon" orbiting a gas giant in another solar system, is what it orbits really the first consideration in picking what to call it? no, composition should come first, orbit second. so you could have a moon of the sun (pluto), or a planet of saturn (titan), or an asteroid of mars (deimos/ phobos, etc.)
so this system demotes not only pluto, but also mercury. while promoting titan. so our solar system is composed of:
-4 planets (venus, earth, mars, titan)
-4 gas giants (jupiter, saturn, neptune, uranus)
-and countless moons (of the sun and the planets)/ asteroids (of the sun and the planets)/ comets/ ring systems/ kuiper belt, oort cloud objects/ etc
really, as we see more and more exotic arrangements in extrasolar systems as new telescopes come on line, this debate about pluto will look more and more pedantic. and the IAU should really begin focusing on a more rigid definition no matter what, something they said they weren't doing at their last congress. we will soon have a vastly larger catalogue of strange orbital objects/ arrangements out there. pluto is small potatoes... literally
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
The death of Pluto as a planet is going to be a watershed moment in my, albeit sad, life. No longer can I dwell in childish thoughts of a small comet like body with an excentric orbit being a planet. There are definitions after all. Definitions are an important part of adult life. I can't carry on wearing a cape and claiming to be superman anymore. Its time to stop pretending that my stick is a sword and my coconut percussion is a hourse. Yes, its time to put away such childish thoughts that led to Pluto's planetary status. A world of progress and commerce awaits us bold explorers who dare to stare into the blindingly obvious truth and confront it for what it is. Changing the definition is out of the question. We've matured now, ripped off the band-aid of addolesence in one quick, but fluid motion. As much as we would like to remove the bitting sting of pulling out a dozen arm hairs, we know deep in our hearts that we are better off as we are than as we were. Alas poor Pluto, I hardly knew thee, but though hast gone to a better place. A place where you can be amougnst your own kind. You were my favorite Planet, its true, but now you start a new life abielt less a less glamourus one. You'll forever be my favorite planet, dwarf or otherwise. I'll think of you fondly and call you every other weekend.
Well.. maybe. Or Maybe not. But Definitely not sort of.
Since the borderline is probably going to have to be arbitrary, why not use Pluto's diameter as the minimum? If other Kuiper objects are bigger, like Xena, then make Xena a planet also. If we end up with 20 planets, so be it. 25 is about classroom size anyhow such that each kid can get a planet assigned instead of sharing that is done now. Who knows, maybe there is a Mars-sized Kuiper object out there. Dismissing Kuiper objects just because they are "far" is kinda arbitrary. Size is a better criteria than distance.
Table-ized A.I.
They didn't change the definition of a planet; there simply wasn't any precise definition of a planet before. As for all of you who want to keep with tradition, I'll refer you to my previous posting on this.
If you've got a strong case why Pluto should be considered a planet, let's hear it. All this grumbling about "I don't see why they had to change things..." is rediculous. There wasn't an official definition before. That ambiguity had to change and when they drafted criteria, Pluto didn't make the cut.
GMD
watch this
Too late, solar system already took Pluto off of his Friends List.
http://uncyclopedia.org/wiki/Image:Save_pluto.jpg
Table-ized A.I.
That scientific "fact" can be changed by petition.
Yes, I know that this whole planet thing is just taxonomy, but do they? Do the politicians really understand that, either?
"Ein Volk, ein Reich, ein Führer." -Adolf Hitler
"We are one Nation, we are one People." -The One 'leader'
They demote pluto because it hasn't cleared the neighborhood of its orbit because its orbit intersects the orbit of Neptune. But doesn't this necessarily mean that Neptune has not cleared its neighborhood and therefore is also not a planet?
What does clearing the neighborhood mean? To me it suggests the planet should have no moons either?
If you are going to make a big deal and change the definition of something like this you should put a heck of a lot of thought into creating a definition that is objective and not open to interpretation.
FTA:
"And the chair of the committee set up to oversee agreement on a definition implied that the vote had effectively been 'hijacked'"
Shades of Florida 2000 and Ohio 2004? If you're not satisfied with the results of a democratic vote, the answer isn't to piss and moan about it--it's to take steps to ensure that future voting is done legally and judiciously. Plus, if only a small majority of eligible voters participated in the vote, well then who's fault is that? It's the fault of the same people objecting to the reclassification now.
And do you know what low voter turnout is anyway? Business and politics as usual: In many American municipal elections, an absolutely tiny percentage of eligible voters turn out to cast their vote. In my town, a paltry 6 percent of eligible voters voted in the last municipal election to see which butts would fill several empty City Council seats. SIX PERCENT! And this, despite the fact that local representatives have far more to do with how you live your lives on a day to day basis than the President.
I guess what I'm saying is that when you complain about a democratic process that closely mirrors every other democratic process we know about, it makes you look pretty foolish--worse, it makes you look like a bunch of whiny little crybabies who know far more about objects light years away than they do about democratic institutions right here on Earth. Highjacked, indeed.
For those of you at home who are playing along, here's the score so far:
~800 bc - Roman god of the underworld.
05-01-1930 - New planet. Also Mickey's new canine companion. Retains position as god of the underworld.
08-10-2006 - Still a planet. And a dog. Takes time off as god of the underworld to "spend more time with his new ceslestial family".
08-24-2006 - Demoted as a planet. Reclassified as a "dwarf planet" (or as they prefer to be called "Little planetiods"). Resumes job as god of the underworld.
Today - A planet again. Maybe. Title of "Roman god the the underworld" undisputed. Still a dog.
(ps. Tomorrow - Profit ???)
Shameless plug for my photos on Flickr
Pluto is smaller than another "non-planet", Pluto has an eccentric orbit, ... actually there is no more you can say other to repeat the irrefutable arguments for it not being a planet. IT AIN'T A FRICKEN PLANET get over it.
Yes but the previous definition of what a planet was just as sketchy. You can measure a degree of roundness but a hard limit that seperates planets and asteroids is not really very appealing. There is a clean physical limit between stars and planets - stars can sustain thermonuclear fusion and this corresponds to a clean range of physical conditions. You can argue that massive Jupiters are brown dwarfs and vive versa but we can still divide into star and not star cleanly.
There just isn't any such clean division between planets, dwarf planets and asteroids. They form a continuum of a sort, and we can draw lines on a continuum (we do for wavelength in spectroscopy for instance) but the lines are sort of arbitrary. Personally, I think its much more important that people realize that there is a continuum of objects rather than seperate classes. Theres a lot more interesting physics in how and why all these objects form rather than in lumping x of them into one category and y into another.
For the publishers its probably good to wait and watch until there is some consensus.
Reality must take precedence over public relations, for nature cannot be fooled.
The rest of the world can use the metric planets that evolved in our solar system.
There. Everyone happy now?
This issue is a bit more complicated than you think.
Last week a bunch of us were ridiculed for using the word "planet" in reference to Pluto. We were accused of being Bushitlerian anti-science fundamentalists. Some even suggested we were closet flat earthers. How dare we question the infallibility of science and its inerrant prophet the scientist!
But now 300 scientists have signed a petition to promote Pluto back to a planet. That's THIRTY more scientists than voted for the demotion in the first place!
I'm wondering how long it will be until I get an apology?
Don't blame me, I didn't vote for either of them!
Dear distinguished ladies and gentlemen of letters,
Humanity has arrived at an inflection point in our history, one whose influence will steer our course for decades, or, more likely, centuries. The post-millennial rise of both Islamic and Christian fundamentalism tears at the very skirts of the Enlightenment.
Your fellow citizens have twice elected an inarticulate and violent demagogue as President, a man who has expressed deep personal doubts about the validity of the scientific method and its relevance in America's primary-school classrooms. Three-fourths of the adult population profess a belief in angels; two-thirds believe the Christian Bible is the literally-true word of their God. Over half state that humans were created by God in their present form.
One American adult in one thousand can state the freedoms guaranteed by the First Amendment to the Constitution.
Meanwhile, to the elected representatives of this singularly-unenlightened population, you, America's scientists and engineers, have cheerfully handed control of several thousand thermonuclear weapons.
And now you're bickering endlessly about... whether or not Pluto is a planet.
Cut this shit out. Now. I don't want to live in another Dark Age, or worse, die upon the threshold of one.
Let Pluto be Pluto, whatever Pluto is, and let's put our heads together and figure out how to deal with the delusions we've created for ourselves here on Earth. We need intellectual leadership, not semantic panem et circenses.
Answers? Sorry; you're the scientists, I'm just some obviously-unlaid AC, ranting into the night on Slashdot's nickel. If I had any suggestions, believe me, I'd be making them, but I don't.
But come on. We've got to do something productive here.
It's cool man, I've heard that some girls actually LIKE dwarf-peni
is that excluding Pluto turns the now defunct, but talented funk/rap/rock duo 2 Skinnee J's excellent song, "Pluto is a Planet", into one giant lie! A lie!
A lie I've believed for just too long.
Therefore, I advise astronomers to make Pluto a planet again. Make inquisitive Googlers search for "Pluto+planet" on Google instead of "Pluto+not+planet."
I ask this with the hope of making 2 Skinnee J's commercially successful, therefore making them reunite to entertain me. And we're really just concerned about me here.
I took a shit that was about the same size as Pluto. Can we call it Planet Golgothan?
I think a lot of the summaries have missed the point.
The final "definitions" that they came up are not scientifically useful or even useful for any reason. No better than the previous enumeration of planets. Really a lot worse in that now by definition planets only exist in our solar system. So, all those things that orbit other stars... oh well now they are just thingies that orbit other stars. The draft proposal seemed much better by comparison and provided a much more broadly applicable definition. Hell kick pluto out of the main planets if you want, but do so by increasing some arbitrary size threshold and then don't use planet as part of the name for whatever you are left with, at least if by definition it is now not a planet or any type of planet. Even the dorky sounding "pluton" would have been better than "dwarf planet"
And you have to imagine we are going to be finding a lot more planets around other stars in the coming decades as telescopes and processing power improve. or we would have, now we can't since all we can find is something that has no category of its own, unless they too will get a two word name that includes the word planet, such as "extrasolar planet" even though the word "planet" alone is not applicable.
And the part about clearing the neighborhood of the orbit part of the definition seems like it could be problematic from an observational standpoint. The idea that even if we agree to extend this new "definition" to other star systems, then observations probably won't be sensitive enough to be able to determine if the planet-like object has cleared all the asteroids from the "neighborhood". So, until we actually go to another star system, the likelyhood of finding another object and consitently (with the definition) say that we have found a planet will be nil.
Those of you who think the problem some of us have with these problematic new definitions is merely nostalgia, think again.
Bring back the draft proposed definitions and maybe tinker with those a bit. These ones they came up with need to be thrown out.
It just bothers me, that I, uh, you, have an organization that sold our system, and is willing to milk it way out there. Pluto is having a ruff time, no matter which way you plan it. Like a dog that barked at the daughter or bit the son, it'll always come at you.
Or so the bad pundits say.
Have you read my journal today?
What does clearing the neighborhood mean?
it means that it's neighborhood is relatively clear.
earth doesn't share an orbit, although random asteroids will cross the orbit.
neptune mostly has it's own orbit, even though pluto crosses it.
pluto, however, is in a whole friggin belt of stuff. it is not the dominant body in its orbit.
this same problem happened back when we discovered the asteroid belt. at first, quite a few objects there were 'planets'
however, as we started to get up to 20 planets, we realized that it was just a bunch of rocks, all in the same orbit.
then, we changed the definition.
besides,
whether or not it's called a 'planet' doesn't make it better or worse.
pluto just doesn't share the same gravtational influence as other planets, so we shouldn't study it the way we study other planets.
we should study it as a minor body.
Common human consensus had Pluto as a planet and pretty much still does today.
Geez, you make it sound like they're just some random cranks who got together. This was a meeting of the IAU. Common human consensus had tomatoes as not being fruits and dolphins as fish before people sat down and came up with a consistent definition.
Pluto's essentially grandfathered in from a time when we hadn't yet found other objects in its size class. I hope you realize that Pluto is only about 2300 km across while our own moon is about 3500 km across. Are we in a double-planet system, or is there some logical reason you can think of for making a smaller object than our moon a planet while our moon is undeserving of the status?
I think it's high-time we demoted it as nothing more than an oversized trans-Uranic asteroid. I mean, it doesn't even operate on the same elliptic plane as the planets do and it has a "moon" that's half its size. The only reason anyone cares is a knee-jerk anger over having some childhood lesson overturned.
If it's for-profit but free, you're not the customer -- you're the product (e.g., the Slashdot Beta's "audience").
this is only causing such a ruckus because Pluto's the only [former] planet to have been discovered by an American.
/ducks
I realize it might not look fair, but unless there is some reason to think the astronomers that voted are biased in some way then 424 voters out of 2700 people is more than enough to give an accurate representation of the group as a whole.
In science our primary means of communication are words. Because of that, we need to have some degree of stability in the definitions of the words that we are using. At the same time, we (scientists) are constantly encountering new phenomena which can challenge our current definitions and systems of classification. Much of the same problem can be seen in biology: when taxonomists were originally dividing living organisms into families, species, and genuses, they had no genetic information available - they based their classifications on the structures present. However now many species have had their relations reassigned based on genetics - this means new names which better line up with the facts that are now known. Still, not everything must be changed; it is not always necessary.
Much the same has happened with physics, chemistry, and astronomy. In chemistry, the term "dative bond" has been all but replaced by alternative words. Some (older chemists) still use it, however it is a word that many disfavour. (And personally I prefer its use to some of the more clumsy longer names given.) In astronomy, "planet" was originally the name given to "wandering stars," yet we still use the term planet to describe them. Admittedly a case could be made for changing our definition, but I think that subclasses are possily a better way to go. Most of us have accepted the term "Gas Giant" for some time, and it in no way lessens the planetary status of such giants. Perhaps the idea of Dwarf Planets will gain similar acceptance?
Frankly though, I am not entirely sure that size is always the best way to categorize anything (despite our human inclination to do so)... perhaps composition or habitability might be better? (although this will be of limited use if we're never bother to visit them) I could easily be persuaded to describe pluto as an "icy planet"... or Earth as an "M-class planet."
I am starting to think that the IAU hired a very good PR firm. They are milking this for all its worth. But its starting to seem that all this is, is a publicity stunt. I bet they end up with more funding for all this too.
...is that because of the New Horizons http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Horizons mission NASA and US astronomers has been pushing for a definition where Pluto is a planet because it is more prestigious to send a probe to a planet than to a dwarf planet. We are supposed to be scientists, and make definitons that make sense from a scientific point of view, but this is politics.
That's approximately 117 mm for the real scientists
Any emotional reasoning for keeping Pluto as a planet should be disregarded. "Oh, it's such a cute name." People need to separate themselves from the emotional aspect. This is like arguing over what date the seasons actually change.
I find it unfortunate that so many people have so much emotionally invested in Pluto being a planet. People who can't tell you anything else about Pluto, people who don't care one whit about astronomy, people who couldn't tell you what a neutrino is or why it's important to understand dark matter, people who think evolution is a some kind of humanist conspiracy... It's a sad state of affairs. "Who cares about science? We just want to follow Tradition -- which is to say, to continue wallowing in ignorance."
I really liked the original suggestion. It's a planet if:
* It is round under its own gravity
* it is not already classified as a star
* It is not a satellite to something else not classified as a star (ie. when the common point of rotation is located within the body of the other object)
A possible fourth criteria could be:
* It orbits something classified as a star
though I'd be happy without that criteria, making solitary, wandering bodies be called planets as well.
Sure, that will probably get us planets by the dozen as we get a clearer idea of what't out in the edges of our system - but why is that a problem? It's not like having nine planets has some mysterious significance, and it hasn't been nine - or eight for that matter - for very long either.
Trust the Computer. The Computer is your friend.
I For One Welcome Our New 424 Astronomer Overlords!
Trolls make great pets. Adopt one today!
. . . something you look at and say, "hey, that's a planet."
No, seriously. Given all the historical baggage surrounding the term "planet", people shouldn't be trying to use it as a scientific term in the first place. If you want something that can be used to scientifically denote a certain class of astronomical objects, call them "primary satellites" or something. What's wrong with saying something like this, for example? "A planet is one of the nine satellites of Sol: Mercury, Venus, Earth, ..., Pluto; or a similar object orbiting another star that is widely recognized as a planet." That keeps the status quo with respect to our solar system, which doesn't seem to have hurt anything in the 76 years it's been around, and lets public opinion decide on anything else that pops up. Which leaves astronomers free to spend their valuable time actually watching the sky rather than trying to convince people that something that looks like a planet and smells like a planet isn't actually a planet.
pluto, for one, has a tenuous atmosphere
and certainly there's something solid at the core of saturn/ jupiter
however, ANY system you can possibly think of will be controversial: there will ALWAYS be objects which will defy ANY system of classification. look at our current nuttiness over pluto for example
so if you are going to dismiss this classification system because the definition of "significant" atmosphere can be controversial, then you might as well as dismiss all classification systems, and just stop trying to classify things at all
just look at zoology: what is a platypus again? is it mammal? it lays eggs... you can't classify what it is? so we throw out the entire current zoological classification system just because we can't agree upon what a platypus is? heck, we can't even agree on what a living thing is: is a virus alive? how about prion? look: controversy! controversy is everywhere in life: there are no solid absolutes, welcome to life
so your basis for dismissing this system because what a "significant" atmosphere is can be controversial... and because there is probably a nugget of something in the middle of mostly gaseous saturn or jupiter... is simply not valid
because you are looking for something that is impossible to find: no controversy at all
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
So what do we have? A nation for which to win (keeping the planet they discovered) is more important than to have a good result overall (a solid definition of "planet" that's usable for the forseeable future). Unfortunately, they're the strongest bullies on the playground and they don't mind pushing the other kids around. Let's hope they don't buy the majority they need to get "their" planet back.
Can't admit defeat with style, have to bitch around, looking silly and pissing everybody else off. (sighs)
GET /pluto.html HTTP/1.1
Host: www.sun.com
Accept: */*
HTTP/1.1 404 Object Not Found
Server: Sun-System-Web-Server/6.1
Date: Fri, 01 Sep 2006 06:44:59 GMT
Connection: close
Content-Length: 0
Content-Type: text/rock
Task Mangler
Poor (stupid?) Americans *sig* - In my opinion all this resistance just exists, because Pluto is the only object Americans detected and which - due lack of knowledge - became accepted as planet of our star system. Why cann't they be prood of having found the first sample of this new group of objects Pluto belongs to? Why aren't you prood of all those other planets of other star systems you've found already?
Seriously, what is the deal here?
If astronomers would take their eyes off of the stars for one minute, and look around them, they would see a public sad to see Pluto go. I suggest making Pluto an exception to the rule, in honor of it's previous 50 odd years standing as such. We could use the new planet rules to judge all OTHER bodies discovered, but keep Pluto in it's honorary position as a planet. Honestly, "My Very Energetic Mother Just Served Us... Nothing" is just so depressing!
My great great great... grandfather was taught that in school, and I see no reason to change it.
If a fork is longer than six inches, let's call it a "frark." That's all objective and scientific, right? Or maybe we should set the bar at five inches?
Any astronomer that would admit pluto as a planet probably supports creationist science and a law rounding pi to 3.
Either there are 8 planets, or something like 30. They demoted pluto to a platetoid or whatever label they decided on. Big deal, sentimentality has no place in science.
If the people of the good ol' US can be trusted to vote for who runs the world with the help of the Supreme Court, why not let us show how smart we are as a whole and put this to a vote so we can also control the galaxy? I think most people are smart enough to know we've got eleventeen planets and 43 states.
What is Pluto?
A) A planet
B) No
C) A dog
D) A new form of Play-Do
We all know the answer is G, the guy who shot Mr. Burns.
It's a girl!
My only relevant qualification for this argument is to be an enthusiastic amateur astronomer, but if anything it has meant I've been following it quite closely.
To be honest, the whole argument seems quite ridiculous to me. If the definition if a planet is so waffley that astronomers can't agree on it, then astronomers shouldn't be using the word for anything important in the first place. I'm a little surprised that the IAU saw the need to have a vote on this definition at all, and I'm even more surprised at the apparent outrage that's being expressed by professional astronomers whom I'd have thought might have had more interesting things to do with their time.
It's not as if we don't already have unambiguous ways to describe what's being referred to. The word "planet" is really just a convenience word that can be used as short-hand by people in informal communication. So what if we can count how many "planets" we have? Doing so is a convenient simplistic way to indicate about how many "big things" there are, but it doesn't even start to describe the real complexity of the Solar System.
...why when the whole world is in such a mess ecologically, politically, socially, you name it, and these dudes waste their time squabbling over the definition of some far-flung object. It makes about as much sense as the war in Gulliver's Travels where they were fighting over whether to crack an egg on it's side or it's end. Actually, at least *that* had some practical use. I give up.
Dude, you totally missed WHY they changed the definition. There are "similar objects" in OUR solarsystem and anything we can possibly see orbiting another star will ALWAYS be a planet with that "similar objects" definition. It's a horrible definition by any standard.
"Planet" is only a label, and it's one used in contexts other than Science. Literature, History, Mythology, and Religion, among other things. When someone says Pluto is a planet in those contexts, it has no bearing on science. So, popular culture can continue to define Pluto as a planet and why not? Why should science have a monopoly? This is NOT like saying the Earth is flat. Saying the Earth is flat is a claim about the universe, saying Pluto is a planet is only giving it a label. When you say Pluto is a planet, most people aren't saying anything OTHER than the fact that it's an object in our solar system that's always been called a planet, and what's wrong with that? Why couldn't you say: "A Planet is one of the following nine objects in our solar system : Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Neptune, Uranus, Pluto, and various other objects found outside our solar system, as decided by common useage." An Astronomer is free to say, "Pluto is not technically a planet, by the scientific definition." But that doesn't give any grounds to criticize people who want to call it a planet anyway.
say a planet with an eccentric orbit has an atmosphere that sublimates out onto the surface when far from its sun, and then boils back to life when close to the sun
so does it have an atmosphere?
or howabout a planet with a continuously replenished atmosphere due to extremely active but variable volcanic activity, but also in the tidal and gravitational grasp of a huge neighbor which constantly siphons the atmosphere off, so that the atmosphere is almost randomly variable in density
so does it have an atmosphere?
the point is, it's pretty weird out there in the universe, and just because there are platypuses (objects which straddle classification definitions) doesn't nullify the classification system
whatever "arbitrary" limit you use ("significant atmosphere means minimum of X, gas giant only if atmospheric mass > solid mass" as you say), it should adequately capture 99% of known objects. straddling objects will exist. but the difference between a gas giant and a rocky planet with an atmosphere is pretty well distanced, due to how planets evolve, and the difference between "moons" and "planets" (appreciable atmosphere/ negligible atmosphere) is likewise well distanced
if you drew a graph for round objects in our solar system, with X being # of objects, and Y being atmospheric density, you'll find that there's some objects on one end of the graph, and some objects on the other end of the graph. that there is no continuum of objects such that the cut off point between "has atmosphere" and "does not have atmosphere" is arbitrary. for our solar system at least, it is well constrained into these two groups
i bet someone smarter than me already knows why this seems to be so, or could devise a theorem of solar system formation that explains that, but for the most part, i bet that rule holds for extrasolar systems as well: the difference between gas giant/ planet being well constrained, and the difference between atmosphere/ no atmosphere being well constrained, for the vast majority of objects
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
One day we tell our kids hey there are only 8 planets, then next day we say guess what it became 9 again because pluto was on vacation and now Pluto is back ;-).
>Geez, you make it sound like they're just some random cranks who got together. This was a meeting of the IAU. Common human >consensus had tomatoes as not being fruits and dolphins as fish before people sat down and came up with a consistent definition.
Are you suggesting that witches are not actually made out of wood?
Mostly agreed but remember that a "moon" is defined as a relative concept, as a signifcant satellite orbiting a planet. There could be a really damn big "moon" somewhere that is orbiting a humongous planet and that moon could be approaching mercury size or something but it would still be a moon. A "planet" is not defined by size alone but by relative function and hierarchy within an orbital system.
"The Cube": it just wouldn't be the same without fellatio "Corey Kosak": It just wouldn't be the same... oh, looks like
http://www.cnn.com/TECH/space/9909/30/mars.metric. 02/
7 inch would be about 177.8mm.
Lovell (he of canals on Mars fame) decided that there must be a huge Gas Giant out beyond Neptune, but could never find one.
In order to find this planet, and ensure that Lovell wasn't primarily remembered for his fanciful and incorrect thesis regarding life/civilisation on Mars, a junior astronomer was set to work searching for this suposed super giant Gas Planet.
Note that I say Junior, no-one else wanted the job, no-one....
Instead of a Huge Gas Giant, he found a tiny rock. As it turns out this was the first sighting of a Kuiper Belt Object, a noteworthy acheivement in itself which was sullied and robbed of its true importance as a milestone in astronomy due to the politics of the day within the astronomy movement.
So, this tiny rock was hailed as Lovells planet, in spite of the ludicrous nature of this claim, given the obvious disparity between the predicted object, and the one found. It could never have caused the gravitational perturbance by which the presence of the gas giant was inferred by Lovell.
It's status as a planet, whilst debated by some then, and many since, has been assured due to this fear of blackening Lovells name.
Interestingly, none of the astronomers who wanted Pluto to be a planet would consider calling our moon, or Ceres planets, even though admitting Pluto into the list of planets meant these, among others, would now qualify.
It is this bizarre situation that the decision regarding Pluto is seeking to resolve. That not many astronomers were there to vote is beside the point. The vote was known to be taking place a long time in advance (many months), it wasn't a rushed secret ballot or anything.
The people who want to discredit the vote don't actually have an alternative classification, they just want the ambiguity to remain.
In effect, what we have here is an old fashioned cat fight among supposedly mature people of science (predominantly men).
That's not a rant, I'm seriously asking. Does the label "Planet" mean something special? I mean, is there some kind of long winded string attached to it that warrants shipping a few thousand experts to one place and have them discuss whether or not some stellar object is to be called planet?
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
Looks like Pluto took the words straight out of LL Cool J's mouth:
"Don't call it a comeback
I been here for years
Rockin my peers and puttin suckas in fear"
Democracy is two wolves and a sheep voting on lunch.
Oh but it is, it's very important. A precise terminology is critical to get anything done in any field.
:)
Nostalgia or neat names your kids like are no reason to violate the rules of your field. AIDS was orginally categorized as a form of cancer, but then we found that it's not a cancer, so we stopped calling it a cancer. It's simple, really. Once you disprove something, it makes no sense to go on believing it.
The simple truth is that if you call Pluto a planet, then you also have to call Ceres and potentially hundreds of bodies in the Kuiper belt planets as well. Pluto does not dominate its orbit around the sun, it shares it with Charon, they spin around each other, one is not a moon of the other. None of the other planets in the solar system have such a symbiosis, they all have moons that orbit them. What shall we do when we manage to spot specific planetary bodies in distant solar systems? "let's see... hrm, that's a class-M planet, that's a gas giant, that's a dead rock, all of these have moons and they're spherical and dominate their orbits, but hey, here's a neat looking body there dancing with another body, I guess that's a planet too, let's call it Mickey and forget the thing it's spinning with." Where does it end? We need a concise definition that works every time, no exceptions.
As it is, with that gold disc in the voyager spacecrafts showing the planets of our system, it's doubtful ET will find us now since he'll see our system has only 8 planets but his directions said there would be 9. If he stumbles into the system anyway, and finds that's he's got the right place, he's going to think we're a bunch of retards for saying we have 9 planets
The world doesn't revolve around you, you know!
Wait... this just in: the IAU have had another vote, and... well, apparently it does. Or does it?
Genesis 1:32 And God typed
How the hell did you get modded insightful? The reason our moon is not a planet and Pluto was/is is the same reason many of Jupiters moons aren't considered planets. The are called Moons because of their orbits. They orbit planets not the sun. If the Earth orbited Jupiter it'd be a moon not a planet. We're talking High School science here. One of the reasons Pluto got demoted was it has a tandem orbit with Charon. Charon doesn't orbit Plutos axis they both orbit an imaginary axis somewhere between the two. In a sense they could both qualify as moons but that would be silly. The biggest issue with pluto other than size was it was mostly made up of ice which falls into comet teritory. Another bad reason to demote it. If we find an Earth sized body made up of 90% water is not a planet then because of composition? Roughly round shape means a certain mass and orbits the Sun means planet. Those should be the two standards. Anything else is arbitary.
"Your definition would be confusing and with the discovery of more systems would get even more so with planets orbiting planets and other planets that arnt actually planets"
my definition isn't confusing, the universe is
yes: planets orbiting planets. confused? don't blame me. blame the universe. what else would you call such a situation?
if you called a rocky sphere with an atmosphere orbiting a rocky sphere with an atmosphere a "moon orbiting a planet" what information have you captured? you've captured less than what my nomenclature does
emphasizing "what it orbits" over "what it is made of" doesn't make any sense. "what it is made of" is more important. titan is more important than mercury. it really is. it's more interesting, it is an object of more investigation. it has an amosphere, that means something
and i mean SIGNIFICANT atmosphere. pluto does not have that
are you still confused?
here, i'll confuse you some more:
how about a tertiary star system orbiting a common gravitational barycenter, each star with it's own planetary system... and one planet that, via natural harmonics between the three stars, switches orbital allegiance every now and then. unlikely but possible. well, what do we call such an object then with a nomenclature dependent first and foremost on what something orbits, rather than what it is made of?
let's get crazier: how about a trojan planet? usually objects that are trojans are tiny, a requirement of objects existing at lagrange points for two much larger objects. but what if those two objects were so massive that they allowed for the existence of a mass large enough to gravitationally become a sphere and retain an atmosphere at the lagrange point? yes, a trojan planet. now: what is that called in a system that emphasizes "what it orbits" over "what it is composed of"?
and even if we didn't use my definitions for what a "planet" was, it doesn't matter
because whatever word we agree that would be this earthlike range of parameters of size/ atmosphere/ etc... say this word was "fred", then this word would rapidly become the most interesting and important word in use when talking about extrasolar systems
say we found 10 new systems
and we classified each according to our current definitions: gas giants, planets, moons, etc. the first thing everyone would want to know is where the "fred"s were: the bodies most like earth. the gas giants, planets, moons: who cares
"ok, this system has 20 planets, 3 gas giants, and 45 moons"
"whatever, where are the freds?"
"well, the freds, the most earthlike orbs, are: 4 orbitting the star, 2 orbitting the first gas giant, and one orbitting the third gas giant"
"ok, that's what i'll be researching"
the "fred"s are the most important things: the things that might harbor alien life, or be targets of our colonization.
and so in the future, whether we use the word "planet" or some other word to describe the most earthlike worlds, whatever word that is used will come to have the most meaning to us, and all other classifications will fall into more esoteric and archaic meanings, so that in a future of many known extrasolar systems, our current defintion of planets and moons will be looked down as ancient and archaic and useless
kind of like how modern chemists look at the quaint classifications of alchemists "earth/ air/ fire/ water", or how modern astronomers look at the whimsical classifications of astrologers ("libra", "virgo", "aries")
so will future astronomers look down on our current understanding of planets and moons and its basically useless emphasis on "what it orbits" as being more important than "what it is made of"
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
so if i say to you that osama bin laden believes in god, and justifies what he does in the name of god, does that invalidate or diminish the idea of god in your mind?
;-)
no, of course not, that's not logical. if i believe in idea x (evolution) and i believe in idea y (genocide), the fact that idea y is stupid/ wrong does not automatically mean idea x is stupid/ wrong. nor does it mean that if i believe in idea x, that i must also believe in idea y
get it?
but thank you for the humorous propaganda. it's always nice to see politically motivated lies and half truths making the rounds, convincing the gullible of ridiculous demagoguery and manipulating their emotions and acting on their prejudices
you know... like the nazis did
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
Just check what google says about "Pluto is a planet" vs "Pluto is not a planet"
o rd1=%22pluto+is+a+planet%22&word2=%22pluto+is+not+ a+planet%22
http://www.googlefight.com/index.php?lang=en_GB&w
(bad) alien: "BOW BEFORE ZOD!"
IAU: "i hearby reclassify you from bad alien to good alien"
**poof**
(good) alien: "E.T. Phone home..."
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
if it's metric, there needs to be 10 planets ;-)
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
Absolutely, I completely agree. If it's used in a context where there's doubt or ambiguity then it certainly should be defined as accurately as is necessary. But in general conversation, it really doesn't matter. 99% of the time people will understand each other, and if there's a mistake, it's not the end of the world.
It's not unknown to have standards that define what certain terms mean -- RFC and IEEE definitions are full of it, which is very useful for convenience because it saves people having to re-define things over and over again. But they're not binding -- they only reflect an agreement between enough people to warrant writing it down. They hold up because people choose to use them, and those people can happily cite the pre-written definition so people know exactly what they're talking about. (eg. "In this document, we use the definitions from RFCxxxx.") There are also RFC's and IEEE documents out there that everyone ignores, usually because they're impractical or just unnecessary.
The whole thing's a storm in a teacup. What it comes down to is that the definition is whatever people use the word to mean. It's easy to draw up a definition, but voting on it is fairly irrelevant, because it'll only actually work if people choose to use it.
Astronomers clearly can't come to a consensus about what a planet means. If the IAU wants to write its own standard, then fine. By trying to do this with a vote when there's clearly no consensus, however, all it really seems to be doing is risking the loss of reputation it generally has among astronomers for naming bodies in the Solar System. If anything, it's creating more confusion.
Now this, my friends, is an awesome example of the way science works. There are no "sacred" thruths, no absolutes, no "authority" to tell us what to think or do.
If the definition of planet is not good enough, so we tweak it. If someone doesn't agree with the tweaking, he/they can express it and defend their point of view. If we come to the conclusion that our tweaking wasn't necessary or errouneous, we tweak it some more. Science is allways changing, trying to improve our view of the world and the universe.
This is the method we should be using all over our human activities. We as a whole should be able to think more with our own heads, be able to have an argument exchange with someone else, defend our points of view, and when we are wrong, be humble enough to admit it.
Unfortunatly, our society is flooded with examples of the oposite: we are presured to act fast, don't think! buy now! vote now! quick! think of the children! no time to analise, no time to evaluate both sides of the discussion, no time to stop and think "wait a minute, does this even makes sense?"...
As long as we society as a whole keep teaching our children that they should be "lemmings" and follow authority "just because" and don't think for their own, we are pretty much getting backwards, back into the dark ages...
"A sysadmin is a cross between a detective, a police officer, a gardener, a doctor and a fireman"
... from outer space.
Don't fight for your country, if your country does not fight for you.
...I just don't get why this is raising such a fuss.
When I was a kid, there were Baltimore Orioles. Then they decided that they were really the same species as Bullock's Oriole and both of them got renamed the "Northern Oriole." Then molecular genetics studies suggested they were really all that similar and now there are Baltimore Orioles again.
My science teachers were old enough to remember when _their_ sciences teachers had said "There are ninety-two elements. There have always been ninety-two elements. There will always be ninety-two elements." And "elementary" particles? Don't get me started...
The horseshoe crab was Limulus polyphemus. Then it was Xiphosura polyphemus. Now it ''seems'' to be Limulus again... or is it?
Classification is prescientific activity. It's very important but it's always arbitrary and subject to change.
"How to Do Nothing," kids activities, back in print!
From The Fine Article:
In fact, Earth and some of the giant planets have not cleared their paths--asteroids cross the planetary orbits frequently and in some cases orbit in lockstep with the planets.
What did I tell you? I asked "Why's an Earth-grazer OK, and a Pluto-grazer isn't?" and answer came there none, because there is none.
Let Pluto be a planet, let Ceres and the Moon be planets, let a thousand planets bloom...
Pluto is NOT a planet. Get over it.
..most american astronomers who complain now about the results of the poll were at said conference but - like the gross of the other astronomers - left before the final day whith an apparently uninteresting agend (polls about planet definitions and other such stuff)
Why am I talking about american astronomers? Because apparently they are the only one who are so unsatisfied to complain out loud, maybe because Pluto was the only planet discovered by an american? Childish..
So, before complaining about the results: It was a poll, why didn't you vote?
Planet (from PLANETAS), means sphere/round. But seriously, does round mean enough for a planet? If Pluto is a planet, than so are my balls - they orbit around Earth. Distance varies, but on average they orbit 1 meter away from the surface at various speeds... My definition of the planet: Object orbiting a star, not outside of it's terminal shock, that has escape velocity greater than 4 km/s.
there is no issue with my network
For all you supporters: http://www.cafepress.com/keepplutoaplane.71612518
nothing
Personally, I'd like to go back to the original five. The word "planet" comes from Greek and means "wanderer". They were called that because they didn't move with the stars as they (seemingly) rotated around the earth. In other words, they were defined in a way that was useful for human beings.
Since then we've been discovering adding objects that aren't visible to the naked eye. This has taken the word out of the realm of normal folk and into the realm of science. But it's not science. It's a pretty much an arbitrary definition that really doesn't mean much to scientists one way or another - other than as a possible marketing opportunity for a pluto mission.
With the new definition of 8 (and with the old of 9) school children learn that there are 8 (or 9) planets. Why? Because the teacher said so. Yet when they dig deeper to learn about the other objects and why they aren't planets what do they find? That basically we just made up an answer that sounded like it might sound scientific.
In this day and age when science is trying to defend itself not only against the intelligent design crowd but also government funding agencies, it seems to me that this whole fiasco only makes things worse. Science claims to be the light, the truth, the way of trying not to fool ourselves. But I can't imagine this whole thing looks very "enlightened" to the general public. Probably looks more like the circus that it is.
So I say we should do science a favor and give the word back to the sky watchers and the sidewalk astronomers. Someplace where the word can actually be useful.
Devon
> ...Pluto is only about 2300 km across while our own moon is about 3500 km across. Are we in a double-planet system, or > is there some logical reason you can think of for making a smaller object than our moon a planet while our moon is
> undeserving of the status?
Firstly, both Ganymede and Titan are larger than Mercury. Should we "demote" mercury from planetary status on the basis of this fact?
Secondly, yes, there are good logical reason, that have nothing to do with the absolute comparative sizes; the preliminary definition of "planet" (a definition that I consider to have been concise, logical, and scientificially _useful_, unlike the current botch-job) that would have given us an initial 12 planets, laid those reasons out quite well. It should be added that the Earth/Moon system does fall _very close_ to being a "double planet" system, but does not quite fulfill the criteria.
That was the first thing to make me laugh today
Add an unassuming "n" and the Roman God (and the dog) suddenly morph into an intrusive igneous rock body!
Om
I read the post until the phrase "300 astronomers have signed a petition" then stopped. This does not belong to the Science session. The argument about definition of what is planet is not "science", it is "an itching atavistic curiosity in a subject distantly related to science".
I do not believe in karma. "Funny"=-6. Do good and forbid evil. Yours, Oft-Offtopic Flamebaiting Troll.
"Science is not a democracy. Facts, definitions and terms are not up for a vote."
The authority of a scientific view is derived from the strength of the scientific consensus that supports the view, every individual scientist has a duty to rally support for a different view if they belive the current consensus is flawed. That level of democracy in any human endevour is rare and is why the scientific community is sometimes called the republic of science.
"It is NOT how science works!"
Definitions for the scientific method, pick one or give me yours.
And did you exchange a walk on part in the war for a lead role in a cage? - Pink Floyd.
is that you seem to think that there is a *re* definition of "planet" going on here. That isn't the case. This is about the definition of planet. There has been NO definition of what "planet" means and they are trying to work out what defninition to use.
Deciding a version that includes pluto is as abitrary as deciding on one that excludes it. However, excluding Pluto-accepting-definition means that we have a reasonable chance of remembering what planets we do have. A definition that includes pluto would either have to have "and pluto, because we thought it was at the time" at the end. Which reads a little silly.
So, to reduce the sillyness, the actual definition (which is not changed, it is brand new and never defined, except as a list of names (which isn't a definition: no extrasolar planets are named in the list, so they can't be planets...), a definition is made that just happens to exclude pluto as a planet.
still tryin? geesh.. how can anyone just sit there, and let something like Pluto, who has about 50 big round objects, exactly like itself, that orbit our sun, still remain a planet without calling the other dwarves, planets as well?? it just doesn't make any scientific sense to hang on to keeping pluto as one of our "Planets" just because of the old story books, and the "childhood" memories.. its just sad that we're trying to alter the facts, and alter history, just because of TRADITION.. tradition is good in some situations, but when it holds us back from progressing our knowledge base, its just wrong..
*plays the Apogee theme song music*
can you imagine not being able to make Uranus jokes anymore?!
So far Gor is just classed as a "fiction". But since we are changing the definitions of things, why not promote "fictitious planets" to just "planets". It's quicker to type and to say.
So do they now want the definition to remain with the exception "... and except Pluto, which is really a planet!"
An exception like that would just look plain silly.
If the current definition excludes Pluto because it's much like a Kuiper belt object, maybe it *actually makes sense* and the former de facto loose "definiton" was what was messed up and not this more precise one. Heck, there's so much against Pluto, like its orbit, kind, and theories of where it came from that should really make one doubt its classic planetary status, and if a standard calls it a dward planet, IMHO, all the better!
And if you think this is a tradition thing and "omfg, don't change what I've learnt or what kids learn, that's herecy", should past mistakes in classifications remain just because of their age? We'd have a fucking messed up view of science in that case.
Beware: In C++, your friends can see your privates!
Are you suggesting that witches are not actually made out of wood?
But they still weigh the same as a duck.
should past mistakes in classifications remain just because of their age?
This is a picayune problem compared to the ones in zoological taxonomy.
Well, you know, if you applied the same standards for defining a species across the board... on the one hand half the species listed would become variants, and we'd have to consider making genus "Pan" part of genus "Homo". On the other hand, if we want to maintain the majority of the species listed as separate species then we'd have to deal with whether different races of man should be considered subspecies. And what a can of worms THAT would open up. All the racists in the world would come squirming out from under their rocks with their pet theories... but the fact is there's more difference between celts and saxons than between Urocyon Cinereoargenteus and Urocyon Littoralis.
In addition... it's not like astronomers actually need a definition of "planet". It's not a distinction that actually matters scientifically... the textbooks you're so dismissive of are probably the biggest reason there's a debate at all.
... How DARE those cowboy Americans thumb their noses at the international community in such a blatant way? They dare question the wisdom of their international comrades? First the Metric system and now THIS?
Oh wait, I agree with them, I guess it's OK then.
Go Pluto!
I thought astronomers were wise enough to know how to accept change. The new definition for "planet" is excellent. As our understanding of the universe grows, our definitions will change. Simple as that. Pluto doesn't deserve equal status to the _real_ planets. Otherwise, let's just call every rock or gas cloud a planet and be done with it.
They could make Pluto the Yof the solar system. Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune, and sometimes Pluto.
"We shall party like the Greeks of old! You know the ones I mean." - HedonismBot
Ok, the only way to settle this thing once and for all is to have them fight it out in a steel cage. The last astronomer standing gets to decide.
The more I learn about science, the more my faith in God increases.
While we're talking about semantics, what exactly qualifies as a "cleared neighborhood"? Wouldn't the Trojan Asteroids mean that Jupiter's orbit isn't cleared? If that does count as cleared, shouldn't the definition of "moon" then be (re-)defined to exclude Telesto and Calypso (which orbit Saturn in Tethys' Lagrange points) and Helene and Polydeuces (which orbit Saturn in Dione's Lagrange points)? What about Epimetheus and Janus, which are considered "co-orbital" and switch places every four years? It seems silly and unscientific to me to use one set of orbital characteristics for bodies orbitting the sun, and a different set for bodies orbitting a planet/dwarf planet/asteroid/whatever.
I suppose you could take the tact that the Trojan Asteroids got "swept" into their current positions in Jupiter's Lagrange points by Jupiter's gravity, thereby qualifying as being "cleared" out of an independent orbit. However, something tells me that if another Theia-like planet had formed, say in Earth's other Lagrange point, and with an orbit still stable today (only got to the size of Mercury, instead of Mars?) the proposed definition of "planet" would be a bit different, since such a body would be naked-eye visible, making it another of the "classic" planets.
The U.S. Constitution needs to be ammended with a "separation of business and state" clause.
Some astronomers want a definition suitable for other solar systems too. There are about 216 planets now- 8 main solar ones, 8 solar dwarf planets, and 200 oribiting other suns.
Other solar systems are more concerned about the uppers sizes of planets, which they can detect now. At 100 Jupiter masses it might be fusing as brown dwarf star.
The Object Formerly Classified As Planet.
X IMPRIMITE "SALVE TERRA!"
XX ITE AD X
As a planet it was nothing special, barely in the definition, but now it's a prototype of a new class of objects; Dwarf Planets.
For once Pluto is now more important than Uranus or Neptune.
ADVENTURERS! - ANTIHERO FOR HIRE - CARDMASTER CONFLICT
but i do know that for lagrange points to support a planet, it would pretty much have to be very massive planet + massive sun... and no other planets. because the other planets would perturb the lagrange points enough to sweep them clean of anything big
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
A "planet" is a "wanderer", a "wandering star" seen from Earth. We should define a planet as any body orbiting a star that could be seen by a (20/20) human from 1AU from that star, either unaided or with a 33x telescope (Galileo's) on a clear, dry moonless night, or any body that could be seen in those conditions to disturb the orbit of a planet.
That was the definition used by humans for many thousands of years, which is why even scientists are still attached to it. Let the ITU haggle about the definition of "planetoid" in whatever objective terms serves science. Pluto and its dinky fellow travelers can be "dwarf" planetoids together, while Pluto remains a "planet". And it will be easier for everyone to imagine distant solar systems when described in familiar terms to which we can relate.
The emotional and subjective definitions of planet are important to humans using science to relate to the universe and our place in it. Throwing that under the bus discredits science in the public mind while losing the value that the public mind brings to producing new science.
--
make install -not war
American Astronomical Unions Division of Planetary Scientists
The fact it was an USA citizen who discovered Pluto doesn't have any relation with this, "of course".
actually - Tomatoes are fruits by a botanical defnition and vegetables by a legal one. The U.S. Supreme Court declared they were vegetables based on a definition based on the way in which they were used.
It's a rock. It doesn't care what we call it. Why should I?
I know that there was a cartoon dog named pluto, but calling a planet named for the Lord of the Underworld a dog is insulting.
Seriously, think of our Underworld Overlords.
I have nothing to say.
The Moon is tidally locked to the Earth, standing on the moon and looking up at the Earth, it would look like the Earth hangs there in the exact same spot, 24/7/365.
Is this really a "better definition of a planet" -- or just different? IMO, it's all semantics and that's the thing that has some people scratching their heads... This isn't about science, per se, it's about the politics of naming.
:-)
I don't really care whether Pluto is a "planet" or "pluton" or "dwarf planet" (since I've long been out of school) but the question I keep asking myself is "Why is the new definition 'better'?" Is it more accurate? Clearer? My take is that if you say "the planets are these nine (or ten, or twenty) bodies," that's perfectly as acceptable as saying "a body that's in orbit around the Sun, that's mostly round, that has cleared other bodies from its vicinity." The first definition is less flexible (and has lead to some arguments over whether newly-discovered bodies are "planets") but the new definition was also carefully crafted to include and exclude the things that are (or are not) to be part of the group.
One thing that amuses me about this is the politics of naming and/or grouping things. The current issue with astronomers is so much like what we get from doctors, with their naming fetish: a sort of neo-pagan belief that naming a thing gives you power over it. I always find it amusing when the doctor tells you you're suffering from plantar fasciitis, which is to say "sole band" - as if calling an injury by its location (in Latin) is some magical incantation. Or perhaps the Latin naming can give us insight into the current controversy. After all, these "star lawyers" are working on their naming conventions.
Interested in a Flash-based MAME front end? Visit mame.danzbb.com
Revenge of the Plutons: This Time it's Personal.
*sigh* There goes: Many Violent Extremists Make Jihad Sound Undoubtedly Nice
Uranus is visible to the naked eye, the Greek just hadn't found it. Ceres and Vesta can be seen by a "very sharp-sighted person under exceptional viewing conditions".
Get back to work now you babies.
ôó
Adrian Monk wants there to be ten planets.
Click here or here.
Frankly, the petitioners are behaving like whiney children. There are, in fact, problems with the new definition. I'm pretty sure that the IAU meant that a planet should be the dominant gravitiational body in its region (Pluto isn't), not that it has cleared its region completely. So, OK, we need to revisit that later. But these guys have bad-mouthing their collegues in the press, their petition (and the email that solicited signatures) is down-right dismissive, rude, and accuses a group of collegues of what amounts to voting fraud, and I question the petition itself. (Having looked over the signatures, I don't see a lot of names I recognize. I'm a professional planetary scientist and a member of the AAS (it's not "Union", it's "Society") and DPS. While I am confident that the signers are real people and are possibly even involved in astronomy in some way, this suggests to me that not all that many professional astronomers signed it.)
Accusing the IAU of voting fraud is a cheap ploy. Stern and others left the meeting early. They knew when the meeting ended, but they chose to leave early. Sure, some people probably had really pressing matters to get back to. But I doubt that many couldn't have stayed for the vote. (And even if not, the people leaving should have been random on both sides of the issue.) If Stern thought the vote was that important, he should have stuck around. You don't forgive your Congressman for missing a key vote because he chose to head out to a fund-raiser in your home district instead, do you? And you can't argue that they didn't know that the vote was being taken a week ago Thursday; *I* knew sitting here in Colorado because the BBC and other media outlets reported it. If the media knew, than the IAU members must surely have had the information available.
Worse still is the would-be gripe that not all professional astronomers got to vote in general. Considering that they weren't pushing for us all to get to vote *before* they lost, that's pretty hollow. As I said, I'm hold a PhD in planetary science and am a professional in the field and *I* don't get to vote in the IAU as I'm haven't been invited to join. The pro-planet people weren't stumping to get my vote counted before, so I don't swollow their complaints now. They're bitter about having lost an election and seem to want to kick, scream, and hold their breaths until they get their ways. I have no respect for that and I wish that everyone else would just ignore them they way you ignore a bratty child.
(None of this is to say that I have no respect for people who argue that Pluto should be a planet, provide that they present their cases maturely. You're welcome to disagree with my own view and I can respect that. Just don't accuse me of being stupid or of "hijacking the vote".)
Why not just ask Captain Planet what he thinks?
Well said. It's only an issue because a few astronomers feel that their funding and their reputations are at stake if Pluto's status is altered. It's basically about ego and money, not science.
(The preceeding are opinions, not facts. Please treat them as such.)
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I can't remember this one ... is this the Pluto who's trainer dies, and he comes back out of retirement for one more fight to regain his title as Planet?
FLR
Won't it shock the world to find out that Pluto is not a planet at all, Dwarf or otherwise! Hmmwuhaahaahaa!
I'm not upset at all at this tempest over a teapot. For the first time in a long while I'm seeing a science topic being distilled all the way down to local papers like the Jersey City Journal. It's stirring discussion in classrooms and stimulating questions. A win-win for the folks that really matter.
As for myself, I view it this way. We've never really tried to define planets in a scientific way to the degree we are now. Back in the day that we thought it was just the Nine and the Asteroid Belt it wasn't a big deal. The plain fact with Pluto is that unlike the Eight, Pluto doesn't really stand out from busloads of similar Plutos that we're going to find including objects like Xena which are larger and arguaably more deserving of planet status than it is.
So we have two choices really. If we want to define planets scientifically, there's no definition that would include Pluto that won't leave us with a solar system in which Plutonian objects wind up defining the numerical majority of planets.
The other choice is to admit that we're choosing a social/political/historic definition of planets and retain Pluto under that basis. This should also be part of the topic being addressed in classrooms.
I've done a good deal of amateur astronomy (it was my favorite science class in college) including building a couple of telescopes (one from a kit and one from scratch) so I find the discussion around creating a new definition for "planet" interesting. But I'm still not convinced that there's a meaningful reason for the change.
As I said, I'm not opposed (necessarily), I'm just curious as to why this is suddenly a big deal. Claiming "better knowledge" seems specious. Again, as far as I can tell this is about semantics, not some "new knowledge." Maybe the new definition clears up an ambiguity that I'm not seeing, or perhaps there's some value in being able to group these objects as "planets" and "not-planets" in a new and different way, but the benefit doesn't seem large. Which makes me believe (as I stated in my original post) that this is mostly a political thing--infighting among astronomers.
I'm not sure why so many people discussing this think people are opposed "because that's what they learned" -- although it's somewhat amusing that you're parroting that reply even after I explicitly stated that's not my reason for questioning the change. But this is slashdot, where strawmen abound, so I was halfway expecting the "I read your first sentence, then replied" knee-jerk reaction.
And I'm still waiting for a serious answer...
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Right, but an element is defined by the composition of the nucleus, more specifically the number of protons in it. One proton, for instance, is hydrogen.
617B3B7F7E7C7D7F00EOF
"Planet" has only ever been defined by those nine things orbiting Sol, so of course it's ambigious when applied to anything else--and that's why I argue that astronomers ought to stay away from it entirely. You don't see scientists arguing over the precise definition of "moment" (as in "just a moment", not the physics term), do you? "Planet" ought to be the same way. It always has been and probably always will be ambiguous, and trying to override years and years of common sense with some arcane (to laymen) set of parameters is only asking for trouble.
Besides, the human brain is actually quite good at figuring out what a "similar object" is, as long as you don't need scientific precision. It's what we're built to do, after all.
... for the same reason that "New Coke" was a failure.
If you disagree with me on social issues, then it's pretty clear that you are a narrow-minded bigot.
Hear hear! People who are grumbling about how people are so conservative that they can't stand demoting Pluto, seem themselves to be attached to the idea that there can only be a handful of planets in our Solar System.
I think "dwarf planet" is the right idea, but I would add one change: call the "big 8" something like "major planets", so that the majors and the dwarfs both fit under the umbrella of "planets". That would make the Pluto-lovers happy, it would make those of us who get excited about "new planets" happy, it would make the schoolteachers happy (don't make the kids memorize all the planets, just the major planets).
The only other idea I have is to call Pluto a "honorary planet", like we give people honorary doctorates. It means Pluto won't actually be able to practice law, but it still gets to hang a diploma on its wall.
this shows, AGAIn , how advance we are and how a small group (424 people) can decide what is what in the sky.
next they'll vote that the moon is really just a big head with a suprized face looking at the earth.
I'm guessing they are also doing this in some other part of the Universe and they just decided that our galaxy is too small to be considered worth exploring......
Pluto does not dominate its orbit around the sun, it shares it with Charon, they spin around each other, one is not a moon of the other.
Does that mean that a pair of gas giants orbiting one another would not be considered planets, simply because they share an orbit? If the Moon were rather bigger, would Earth suddenly lose its planetary status, because it shares its orbit with the Moon? I would rather call these examples "double planets".
The issue of Pluto not clearing its orbit does not refer to Charon, IIUC, but to Neptune, which crosses Pluto's orbit twice.
After the stunt the International Astronomical Union I no longer recognize them as a credible authority on astronomy. Their definition makes all 9 planets non-planets because non of the nine-planets clear their orbit in their new "definition".
Welcome to non-planet Earth.
- John
http://www.jabcreations.com/
There is only one solution to our Pluto quandaries:
Destroy it!
If the photos show dwarves, then it's a Dwarf Planet. Otherwise it's just a regular planet.
Bill Stewart
New Fast-Compression-only CPR http://preview.tinyurl.com/dy575ks
People, people, we're ignoring the good side of this: that the remorseless Fungi from Yuggoth, now have to contend with the fact that their homeworld has been significantly downgraded in status.
It's a public relations nightmare for them.
$META_SIG_JOKE
It's to Pluto we go,
Where you can bet
It's a dwarf planet!
Heigh-ho,
Heigh-ho, heigh-ho, heigh-ho!
Of course, the dwarves of Pluto all have names like Freezy, Shivery and Iceful.
- None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license. -- John Milton
evolution has nothing to do with atheism, seriously. completely different topics. darwin was a devout man
you say it does?
well guess what? islam uses the same holy texts as christianity and judaism
so if you say "Atheists try to lump all gods into one, but they're not the same" i will say two things:
1. i'm not an atheist
2. they ARE the same... if you keep insisting that atheism has anything to do with evolution
now i'm willing to admit that the god in islam is a different character than the one in judaism and christianity, if you grow the slightest bit of SIMPLE INTELLECTUAL HONESTY and blink, and admit that evolution has nothing to do with atheism and does not in ay way diminish a faith in god
or go right on with your moronic propaganda
but then don't expect to find me to be very generous when asked about how much the god in islam resembles god in christianity
seeing as you are not interested in being intellectual honest, why should i be
are you ready to play fair? or are you going to continue to be willfully intellectually dishonest, and therefore evil, immoral, and injustice
and therefore outside the good graces of god
be careful now, your future is defined by your actions. in the eyes of your fellow human beings, and in the eyes of god. you need to correct your erroneous ways
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
Ah, the irony.
Have you actually measured a "two by four"? Its dimensions are nowhere near 2 by 4. They're around 1 and 1/2 inches by 3 and 7/16 inches. Try it yourself if you don't believe me.
It's far more accurate to call it a "four by nine", using centimeters, than "two by four" in inches. "Two by four inches" is off the truth by a whopping ~25%, while "four by nine" in cm is within 5% of the truth.
In case you're curious, it has to do with trimming: a "two by four" is the size coming off the first sawmill. After that it's trimmed down and sanded to the size that actually gets used in construction, which is around 4x9 cm. "Two by four" today is really just a designation.
That gives me an idea. We can barrow from computers and have Mainplanets (gas giants), miniplanets (Earth, Mars, Venus), and microplanets: (Mercury, Pluto, Vesta, etc.) Asteroids are calculators and digital wrist-watches.
Table-ized A.I.
"i don't have anything to add to the discussion, and i defer to whatever the iau says"
why did you even post? what is your point?
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
i was thinking about endor (the one with the ewoks right?), which was a "moon" of a gas giant. i don't know what yavin 4 was though...
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
Arguing is what science is about. Voting on scientific topics smacks of a theological debate. Splitters!
Goddamned kids! Get off my lawn!
Well, as I see it the new knowledge is the same kind that got Ceres and Vesta demoted to not-planets - they found a whole bunch of other objects like Pluto
So we adjust the definition to retain our 8 planets with circular orbits of low inclination as a group. The asteroids are another group and eccentric ice balls like Pluto, Xena etc are a third group.
And his so-called friends don't even say a word. http://newsblaze.com/cartoon/newsblaze/gv0828cd.ht ml
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