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Asteroid Lutetia Revealed As a Protoplanet

Posted by Soulskill on from the planetary-life-begins-at-accretion dept.

astroengine writes "Asteroids visited by spacecraft have all turned out to be piles of rubble or chunks broken off of larger bodies, but that's not the case with 21 Lutetia, a 75-mile long, 47-mile wide body orbiting in the main belt of asteroids between Mars and Jupiter. Europe's comet-bound Rosetta probe flew by Lutetia last year and gave scientists a big surprise. With its dense body and an interior that seems to have survived intact, the large asteroid appears more like a protoplanet — a leftover building block from the formation of the solar system."

13 of 102 comments (clear)

  1. Soon to be ... by ackthpt · · Score: 2

    Demoted to "Dwarf-Protoplanet" by a minority of IAU in a meeting held after all the sensible people have left the conference ...

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    A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
    1. Re:Soon to be ... by Dunbal · · Score: 2

      There is always a group of people willing to re-classify everything in the hopes that the mere act of doing this either a) causes some real science to fall out, like loose change from the pockets of people being shaken on fairground rides or b) causes some other people to think that what they are doing is actually important. Coming from the medical field, I really don't give a damn if you call it (non-politically acceptable) mental retardation or (politically acceptable, current) chronic non progressive encephalopathy, and I'm sure the patient doesn't either.

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      Seven puppies were harmed during the making of this post.
    2. Re:Soon to be ... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Insightful

      See, if you actually worked in the medical field and weren't just full of shit, you would care. Politically correct or not, what we used to refer to as "mental retardation" actually encompassed of a wide variety of distinct medical conditions. Chronic non progressive encephalopathy is absolutely not the politically correct modern equivalent (that would be developmentally disabled) but in fact a specific term for a specific medical condition. It's pretty fucking important for a doctor to distinguish between these in order to prescribe the correct treatment, much like it's pretty important for scientists to agree on specific meaningful definitions of scientific terms in order to compare data from independent studies.

    3. Re:Soon to be ... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Planet was never a scientific term in the first place. That's why there was such a stink about Pluto.

    4. Re:Soon to be ... by bhartman34 · · Score: 2

      "Developmentally disabled" isn't the same thing as "mentally retarded". You can have a developmental disability and not be intellectually impaired. Developmental disabilities can also be phyiscal, and they need not involve intellectual impairment. (They could involve cognitive or perceptual impairment.)

  2. Dimensions? by camperdave · · Score: 2

    21 Lutetia, a 75-mile long, 47-mile wide body orbiting in the main belt of asteroids between Mars and Jupiter.

    This is a science article on a science website. Why is there only two dimensions listed for a three dimensional object, and why are those dimensions measured in miles?

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    When our name is on the back of your car, we're behind you all the way!
    1. Re:Dimensions? by NoisySplatter · · Score: 2

      Obviously based on the information given in the problem the thickness is negligible so the body can be reasonably aproximated to a planar figure.

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      In Soviet Russia meme tires of you!
    2. Re:Dimensions? by ackthpt · · Score: 4, Funny

      21 Lutetia, a 75-mile long, 47-mile wide body orbiting in the main belt of asteroids between Mars and Jupiter.

      This is a science article on a science website. Why is there only two dimensions listed for a three dimensional object, and why are those dimensions measured in miles?

      It's flat ... and carried on the backs of four enormous hippopotami (there were five, but one slipped and impacted into the surface of Lutetia) on the back of a giant newt.

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      A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
    3. Re:Dimensions? by RoverDaddy · · Score: 3, Funny

      It's newts all the way down.

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      RETURN without GOSUB in line 1050
  3. Re:@Editor by wsxyz · · Score: 2

    Most of the world population doesn't read Slashdot.
    The majority of Slashdot readers know what miles are.

  4. Great, more protomatter! by Maintenance+Goof · · Score: 2

    Bad enough that Kirk's son messed with the stuff, now we have a bunch of it orbiting our sun. Seriously even Klingon scientists have denounced the use of protomatter.

  5. Re:@Editor by ackthpt · · Score: 4, Funny

    Most of the world population doesn't read Slashdot.

    The majority of Slashdot readers know what miles are.

    Yes.

    We are even familiar with Miles Statute, Miles Nautical and Miles Standish.

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    A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
  6. Re:Let the Pluto wars begin by rgbatduke · · Score: 2

    You're making fourth graders everywhere very sad with your hatin'.

    Renaming it a dwarf doesn't change the actual object that "The Planet Pluto" refers to, and somehow astronomers managed not to be confused about that latter point for a rather long time. Even now, if I call Pluto a planet, I'll bet you understand perfectly well what object I'm referring to. I think that is what was being sardonically observed in one of the comments earlier about the renaming not, actually, being science any more than renaming Brontosaurus Apatosaurus was. All it did was make lots of movies and cultural reference obsolete.

    It's not like there are so very many objects out there orbiting our sun that we actually NEED more adjectives or taxonomic categories. We could refer just to "Pluto" and leave off the word planet altogether and zero information would be lost.

    rgb

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    Even when the experts all agree, they may well be mistaken. --- Bertrand Russell.