Pluto — a Complex and Changing World

astroengine writes "After 4 years of processing the highest resolution photographs the Hubble Space Telescope could muster, we now have the highest resolution view of Pluto's surface ever produced. Most excitingly, these new observations show an active world with seasonal changes altering the dwarf planet's surface. It turns out that this far-flung world has more in common with Earth than we would have ever imagined."

Comments

once upon a time

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ceres was considered a planet FOR HALF A CENTURY

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ceres_(dwarf_planet)

The classification of Ceres has changed more than once and has been the subject of some disagreement. Johann Elert Bode believed Ceres to be the "missing planet" he had proposed to exist between Mars and Jupiter, at a distance of 419 million km (2.8 AU) from the Sun.[17] Ceres was assigned a planetary symbol, and remained listed as a planet in astronomy books and tables (along with 2 Pallas, 3 Juno and 4 Vesta) for about half a century until further asteroids were discovered.[17][25][35]
However, as other objects were discovered in the area it was realised that Ceres represented the first of a class of many similar bodies.[17] In 1802 Sir William Herschel coined the term asteroid ("star-like") for such bodies,[35] writing "they resemble small stars so much as hardly to be distinguished from them, even by very good telescopes".[36] As the first such body to be discovered, it was given the designation 1 Ceres under the modern system of asteroid numbering.[35]

they got over it WHEN THE NEIGHBORHOOD WAS FOUND TO BE FULL OF SUCH MIDGETS

sound familiar? when the deluge of asteroids came in, people thought "uh, its going a little crazy with these planets here, lets lop off the pretenders". now, as they search and catalog the oort cloud, they find that pluto's experience is like ceres's experience in the asteroid belt: planet, until the deluge of neighbors, then demotion. its happened before, its happening again. there's no claim to pluto's status except nostalgia. they got over it in the 1800s, you can get over it now

pluto was discovered in in 1930, and kicked out of the club in 2006. that's a nice 75 year run, 50% more time than ceres

the only thing you have going for your clinging to pluto is adherence to tradition. that's not a good reason to say everything and its uncle is a planet, just to preserve pluto's status. its far easier to lop off pluto, consider us to have 4 (rocky) +4 (gas) planets, and be done with it. everything else is dwarf planet/ comet/ asteroid/ etc.: detritus, flotsam and jetsam, left over rocks, of lower import than the main 8

simple, easy, case closed