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Is Pluto Actually a Mash-Up of a Billion Comets? (smithsonianmag.com)
Scientists from the Southwest Research Institute suggest Pluto may be a comet, as opposed to a planet or dwarf planet. According to a study published in the journal Icarus, Pluto could be made up of billions of comets all mashed together. Smithsonian reports: Scientists had long believed the dwarf planet Pluto was formed the way planets come to be: they start as swirling dust that's gradually pulled together by gravity. But with the realization that Pluto was a Kuiper belt dwarf planet, researchers began speculating about the origins of the icy world. The researchers turned to Sputnik Planitia -- the western lobe of the massive heart-shaped icy expanse stamped on Pluto's side -- for the task. As Christopher Glein, lead author of the paper and researcher at the Southwest Research Institute, explains to [Popular Science editor Neel V. Patel], the researchers used the data from New Horizons on this icy expanse to estimate the amount of nitrogen on Pluto and the amount that's escaped from its atmosphere.
Glein explains the conclusions in a statement: "We found an intriguing consistency between the estimated amount of nitrogen inside the [Sputnik Planitia] glacier and the amount that would be expected if Pluto was formed by the agglomeration of roughly a billion comets or other Kuiper Belt objects similar in chemical composition to 67P, the comet explored by Rosetta." The report goes on to mention a few caveats. "For one, researchers aren't sure that comet 67P has an average comet composition," reports Smithsonian. "For another, New Horizons only captured information about Pluto at a specific point in time, which means nitrogen rates could have changed over the last billions of years. [T]here's also still the possibility Pluto formed from cold ices with a chemical composition to that of the sun."
Glein explains the conclusions in a statement: "We found an intriguing consistency between the estimated amount of nitrogen inside the [Sputnik Planitia] glacier and the amount that would be expected if Pluto was formed by the agglomeration of roughly a billion comets or other Kuiper Belt objects similar in chemical composition to 67P, the comet explored by Rosetta." The report goes on to mention a few caveats. "For one, researchers aren't sure that comet 67P has an average comet composition," reports Smithsonian. "For another, New Horizons only captured information about Pluto at a specific point in time, which means nitrogen rates could have changed over the last billions of years. [T]here's also still the possibility Pluto formed from cold ices with a chemical composition to that of the sun."
The earth is also a "smashup" of all kinds of space debris including comets.
You might as well just call it a planet. Because why not?
"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
According to my own calculation based on the planet/dwarf planet structure, I'd say only 999,980,443 comets.
Slashdot, fix the reply notifications... You won't get away with it...
You proved the existence of God in a single Slashdot post! Why didn't we ever think of this??? Somehow you are greater than Socrates, Descartes, Hegel, and LeBron combined! I bow to your intellect.
Now can you give me a pony?
"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
Ok, so why do qyou believe in God then? It seems reasonable that Pluto was formed by some kind of natural process, even if we can't figure it out yet. After all, we've figured out many natural processes that were mysteries before.
"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
It's a dog.
when science does not actually offer an alternative to God that has substantial proof.
Why would science attempt that? What exactly is an alternative to God?
You believers mix a lot of things up with science. E.g. if there was a scientific proof for (a) God, I still would not _believe_ in him/her _pray_ to him/her or _worship_ him/her: because I'm not a religious person, plain and simple.
Cost free eBook I read (by iBook/Kobo/Amazon/ObookO/Gutenberg etc.): "The Green Odyssey" by Philip Jose Farmer.
But look how much typing he needed for this! All those letters make my mind confused. I'm not sure anymore if I'm an Atheist, after all he is right: I never left the solar system! But I plan that for my next vacation!
Cost free eBook I read (by iBook/Kobo/Amazon/ObookO/Gutenberg etc.): "The Green Odyssey" by Philip Jose Farmer.
Hey, for that, who's your travel agent? What website do you use?
"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
Well, ...
so far I only checked Air France's web site
Cost free eBook I read (by iBook/Kobo/Amazon/ObookO/Gutenberg etc.): "The Green Odyssey" by Philip Jose Farmer.
That was easy. You just applied the 'if the headline ends in a question mark, the answer is no' rule of slashdot.
Is being challenged a bad thing? Just saying "God did it" answers no questions. It's a claim without utility.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
They're just not going to stop until they permanently eliminate it as a planet...
Browsing at +1 - no ACs, I ignore their posts. So refreshing!
Yes. This news seems to be a result of someone re-stating how large objects form in the solar system to make it sound sexier encountering a journalist who has never heard of this before. Tomorrow's article will be "Sun formed from particles created at the birth of the universe" to be followed by "Earth contains fossilized remnants of a 6 billion-year-old supernova".
Well, then the Earth is nothing but an untold number of billions of asteroids mashed together. Time to downgrade Earth!
Beware of Sales Reps bearing gifts.
According to my definition of a rocky planet, Pluto needs:
- a round shape
- a crust
- a hot core or a previously hot core
Pluto passes all three requirements, therefore it's a planet.
Questions?
Yes: So you're saying that the earth's moon is also a planet?
Pluto won't be the first thing in the cosmos to break definitions and it won't be the last. The current definition of planet isn't a good one.
"A celestial body that (a) is in orbit around the Sun, (b) has sufficient mass for its self-gravity to overcome rigid body forces so that it assumes a hydrostatic equilibrium (nearly round) shape, and (c) has cleared the neighbourhood around its orbit."
But if these bodies at some point have a molten core, complex geological features, and long-term orbital stability, I find the cleared neighborhood requirement to be unfounded.
If the Earth was a bit less massive and the Moon a bit more, the center of gravity for the system would be outside of Earth. Why wouldn't it be a binary of two planets then? Isn't it a matter of time until we discover these even in the data on exoplanets we've already got? Pluto is such a system.
When we find Planet IX out there, and it's likely to be 10x the mass of earth, it'll likely have an orbit that is crossed by a great many bodies, some of which may be larger than Pluto and Eris. Is its status as a planet going to be in doubt every time we find another large object in the Kuiper belt?
There are planemos we've detected that may well have not formed in a star's proto-planetary disk but are larger than Jupiter. How are they not planets of a sort?
If we're just trying to keep the planet count in our solar system low, what for exactly?
I find that definitions with excessively sharp and arbitrary boundaries where physics shows us a gradual spectrum are a product of humans trying to impose their thinking, instead of adapt it to the world.
Ok, but you ignored the question. Why do you believe in God then?
"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
1. It has liquid water
2. It has an evolving surface
3. Including atmosphere, it's larger than Earth
What we know about the Kuipier Belt
1. It has an Earth-sized "dwarf planet" (it's a dwarf because it hasn't cleared its orbit, even if it's the size of Jupiter), although Pluto is not that planet
I see nothing here that says "comet" or indeed anything that makes that relevant as to what class of object it is.
It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)
Why should I care how many entries there are under a good definition? I care about having a good definition.
Here's an example of a good definition:
A mass that has a single core, a well-defined gravitationally-shaped layered structure, that does not undergo nuclear fusion that formed within a star system.
Why is this good?
1. It's predictive. I have a hypothesis that can be falsified, that all objects of this type will behave in ways that all objects not of this type will not behave in.
2. It applies to extrasolar objects and rogue planets.
3. It is dependent only on intrinsic, not extrinsics. That makes the classification invariant unless the object itself is changed.
4. Science is not a democracy, it is a search for ever-greater understanding. Politics is a game for fools played by idiots.
5. The same definition has value and meaning whether you're a planetary scientist, geologist, cosmologist, colonist, miner or even astronomer. One definition to rule them all and in the darkness beat them over the head with a 2x4.
You may not agree with the definition, but this definition makes Pluto a planet and Eris, Vesta, Haumea and Makemake not planets.
It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)
The moon was at one point molten, but that's not the same as saying it ever had a molten core. There's no evidence that I know of that it had a distinct core.
It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)
A lot of people rely on proper classification. Those modelling solar system dynamics, astrophysicists, planetary scientists.
If you want to make scientific predictions and then test them, you need the correct model. That's kind of an obvious duh.
If you're in charge of budgets, you want maximum return for the money. Exploring planets yields more science per square foot than an asteroid or comet.
Astronomers just have to point their big shiny... telescopes at big, shiny... things and map them. They don't do anything else that's useful. Unless they were Patrick Moore.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=...
It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)
Ponies on Slashdot have to be pink and collected from Cute Overload.
Bonus karma for those who remember why.
It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)
No clue why.
"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
You're assuming there that the dust condenses sequentially, at a uniform rate, from a single seed particle.
What if, and I know this is a wild assumption, none of those assumptions actually held up? That the dust cloud condensed at multiple points in an accelerating fashion in three dimensions?
A quick calculation then shows Pluto as requiring slightly under a century to form.
It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)
The theory of planetary formation contains three types of model - ones that produce predictions you can test in the lab, ones that produce predictions you can test via simulation, and ones that produce predictions you can test via astronomy.
Simulations produce additional predictions which can be tested either in the lab or via astronomical observation, so you always end up with direct observation.
So, no, nothing in real science is by faith and everything that can be done can be done with real science.
Invoke God all you like, but I can find more photos of accretion disks and planets in the process of forming than you can find of God.
Besides, which God? There are 200,000 religions out there and I bet you didn't choose yours by any process better than the one you ridicule others for.
It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)
Would it matter if you were? Religious people don't "believe in" chairs or worship them. Therefore a scientist who has proof of a God should not worship them. Not that any such proof is likely.
It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)
I started believing in God after reading books.
Well what book then?
This is a typical tacit for arguing with people you disagree with, especially if you cannot dispute the comments directly
I completely disputed your main point. If you don't believe in God a priori, then there is no reason to believe he created Pluto in particular. You had no answer to that.
"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
For a long time I thought the same, but a few weeks ago I found out that it does.
It is however only about the size of Belgium and probably contains considerably less beer.
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
Your argument is flawed in that it says the conclusion would be invalidated by the method by which it came about
The conclusion isn't invalid: it is a viable explanation for the creation of Pluto. Your problem is that there are many viable explanations for the creation of Pluto, and there is no particular reason to believe that your choice is the correct one out of so many.
so you instead try to back track into my history and motivation.
I already know your motivation: you are a devoted Christian. I don't need to figure out your motivation. I'm more interested in seeing if you have any interesting ideas. If not, then that's too bad.
"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
Now you are doing it again. You are saying, "I have explanation A, B, and C......but none of those work so it must have been God." Sometimes the answer is that we don't know yet, but we will know eventually.
"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
You are right about sherlock holmes. But you haven't eliminated all the alternatives yet. I can show you why. There was a time when no one knew how diseases spread. Some people said it was bad air, but you could eliminate that. There were no known possibilities. Eventually though, someone invented the microscope and germs were discovered.
"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."