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The Lower Atmosphere of Pluto Revealed
Matt_dk writes "Using ESO's Very Large Telescope, astronomers have gained valuable new insights about the atmosphere of the dwarf planet Pluto. The scientists found unexpectedly large amounts of methane in the atmosphere, and also discovered that the atmosphere is hotter than the surface by about 40 degrees, although it still only reaches a frigid minus 180 degrees Celsius. These properties of Pluto's atmosphere may be due to the presence of pure methane patches or of a methane-rich layer covering the dwarf planet's surface."
What's next, cold spots on Venus (i.e. cold enough that lead is almost solid again)?
Given that it has both a moon and an atmosphere, are they going to admit that it's a planet (albeit a weird one) -- or do we let the definition become so strict that soon nothing qualifies as a planet anymore?
Paleotechnologist and connoisseur of pretty shiny things.
It's not the size, its the shape and clearing of orbit. If we drop the clearing orbit and Pluto and Eris are in the club, so should be Ceres, Makemake and Haumea at least. I would like them all to go back to planet status, but it's unlikely. It's all the fault of Eris anyway, they wouldn't have reclassified poor Pluto if she was a little slimmer.
Pluto will always remain a planet to me. I'll start calling it a dwarf planet around the time I call 2^10 bytes a kibibyte or when hell freezes over, whichever comes first.