That's called a binary system for both planets and stars; it happens when the center of gravity of the orbiting system isn't inside either object. With planets, if one orbits the other such that the center of gravity of the system is inside A, then B is a moon. Stars ought to be treated the same way, relatively speaking, but moon isn't an easily shared term. Client star? Seems... dry. But accurate. Daughter implies that the client came from the same accretion disk... no certainly that will always happen. Captured star?
So... if the earth was moved to an orbit in the same plane with pluto, it would no longer be a planet? Or maybe you mean if the earth was moved to an orbit with a period and distance of Pluto's? That'd kill everything on it, but I don't really follow the reasoning that causes it to lose the status of "planet", even so. Am I missing something along your line of thinking?
What about it? Half a dozen isn't any surprise to me. This sub-thread was started by a claim of 1000+, which is what got me interested, because it seems... optimistic. No one has backed the claim up yet, but the thread's life isn't over yet. Regardless, I'm all for discovering new planets. Even thousands of them, which would be absolutely fascinating. Let's do it!
I'm not measuring at all. But what it comes down to is a mass issue; once the mass gets above a particular point for any one composition, the object will force itself into a sphere. At that point, I'm calling it a planet, unless that ignites a fusion reaction, in which case I'm calling it a star. Not because it is a sphere, and not because it has a specific value of mass, but because the latter provoked the former. The amount of mass that causes this will vary by composition. For gas, it is relatively low; for hard rock and hard metals, it is relatively high. But the result — a star-orbiting sphere — is relatively constant, and we're going to find them all over the universe. When we do, I'm going to call them planets. You can call them anything you like, of course.:-)
You do realize that you are responding to a thread in which I delineate my personal view; and in no way express a concern that you adopt it, or that anyone else adopt it, right? So when you say "that is the problem", I must respond with that is your problem, because I don't have a problem - I am perfectly content with my view. You just continue right along with your ideas about debris, and more power to you. My views in this matter are also not of consequence to the scientific community, as space science is not my field. However - as these designations are a matter of voting by a body I have no affiliation with - I decline to be overly concerned with what they decide, and in this particular matter, I intend to ignore them.
As for your comments about atoms, I don't quite see for what reason you are attempting to bring them into the conversation at all. Perhaps if your exposition were a little more detailed, we'd all learn something. Or not; but as is, you're being more than a little opaque, or perhaps simply confused.
Ceres is indeed a planet. What I'm looking to do here is not disturb the originally discovered set of planets, not prevent adding to the list. It is apparent that adding to the list is inevitable, no matter whose definitions one uses.
It doesn't include the moon, because the moon orbits the earth. You should read more carefully. The fact that such a definition might include some objects you think of as asteroids is irrelevant; the other definition takes planetary status away from pluto - that's far more disturbing than adding such a label to big, spherical, star-orbiting natural bodies, which if we had encountered them anywhere else, we would almost certainly call planets.
I'm well aware of the Kuiper belt. What I am not aware of is that anyone has determined that more than a very few of them have formed themselves into spheres or spheroids, and which of them are orbiting the sun, as opposed to each other. Without that information, one cannot assume they add the claimed "thousand planets", though I agree it is possible they do. If we have thousands of planets, well, then we do. The first nine we discovered, however, aren't going to change their identity because of that.
So, are those "chunks of rock" spheres or spheroids? Because if they aren't - and I rather suspect most of them aren't, because the smaller the mass, the less likely it is to form a sphere - they fall into the "asteroid" or "comet" classifications neatly. Perhaps they aren't even solid, but just discrete rock clusters.
They arent planets though. Too small. Pluto isnt a planet for that reason too.
No, Pluto is a planet. No question about it. When it comes to matters of perception, we get to choose our authorities. And the folks who voted Pluto out of planet status aren't in my chain of authority in this matter.
I didn't suggest we use "spheroidness" as a guide. That's something you came up with; if you want to argue it, you're not addressing my idea, and I won't take the other side.
The concept I brought up was where objects naturally made themselves into spheroids because their mass and composition made that happen, which is something else entirely than the stand-alone idea of a sphere, and does have both upper and lower bounds, as I described.
No, I try not to get directly involved in activities where groups of people unqualified to deal with subjects I know something about can outvote me, or where I must vote on things I know considerably less about than others. The US political system is based on the insane idea that any two idiots can reasonably outvote a genius, and also that any two uninformed people can outvote an informed person. That is why it is such an awful mess, and the country itself as a direct consequence. I have better things to do with my time.
It is a continuum and the laws of physics don't have any natural or obvious boundary between "planet" and "asteroid".
Well, how many objects that you would call an asteroid have formed themselves into spheres or oblate spheroids? It takes quite a bit of mass for that to happen, because the thing has to basically crush itself into shape. That is a line that physics defines quite naturally for a mass of any given composition; for instance, there is no option whatsoever for the earth to be anything but a spheroid consequent to its own gravity; while Deimos or Phobos, while quite substantial, have no chance whatsoever of becoming spheroids under their own gravity. So in fact, your "continuum" has a very real lower bound. There's an upper bound too; get too large, and you'll either get ignition or collapse — and now we have a stellar object.
In my view, debris is the result of the actions of intelligence, so no, planets aren't made of debris. They are generally made of materials condensed out of a stellar (or proto-stellar) accretion disk, or otherwise naturally found in space.
I believe the main problem with that is that there could be more than 1,000 of them in the solar system.
I guess my first reaction is, where did you get that number? We have 11 or so major planets, collectively they have a fair number of moons; once you remove those from the count, what and where are the other naturally formed spheres or oblate spheroids? Secondly... I'm not sure I have a problem with them being planets in any case, but as I am unaware of them, and I'm kind of a space bug, I don't see that "popular use" is affected. Most people seem to think Pluto was invented by Walt Disney and orbits Mickey Mouse.:-)
No, because marbles didn't (and wouldn't) naturally form themselves into spheres in space. I'd just call them "artificial debris."
There are lots more things, but most are pretty much unchanged - only the debate about what a planet is has really been stirring things up. For instance, if an object was formed by intelligent beings rather than nature, then it gets prefixed with "artificial." I also like "planetesimal" for planets too small to walk on, "planetoid" for planets that are very low mass (specifically, if you can jump off it and reach escape velocity, it's a planetoid), James Blish's "gas giant" for planets that are gaseous and transition from a gas to a solid of the same material at some depth based upon pressure, "spacecraft" for anything that was under its own power or let go inertially from something else under its own power, "satellite" for artificial moons, and "debris" for anything in space that that intelligence is responsible for, that doesn't currently perform some useful function.
I never stopped considering Pluto a planet; the new definition is no more attractive than the previous hand-waving, and frankly, I like my definition better anyway:
If it orbits a star, and has characteristics such that the main mass has formed a sphere or oblate spheroid and it will remain that way barring impact with something, it's a planet. If it orbits a star but will not form a sphere, it's a comet or asteroid, depending on composition (ablative or not, respectively.) If it orbits a planet, it's a moon, regardless of other characteristics. If it is not orbiting a planet or a star, it is a free object; e.g. a free planet, a free asteroid, a free comet. If it is undergoing fusion, it is a star; if the fusion fire was lit, but is now out, we have a dead star, the rest of the usual classifications for the various types of stars apply as per usual.
Think about the known solar system in those terms. Does that not put everything in its place in a reasonable fashion, without disturbing our previous understandings?
You swore an oath to defend against enemies foreign and "DOMESTIC." It comes down to how the government defines "all enemies, foreign and domestic."
No. It comes down to how the soldiers define a "domestic enemy." It may be clear that the most significant domestic enemy we have is the government. The military, you must remember, is not the government.
How can something the consitution a sitting president the authority to do, damage the consitution in itself?
The military commissions act contains within it wording to imprison any person, including any American citizen, indefinitely and with absolutely no recourse, rights, or notice. This ability is contained within the the phraseology that allows anyone being held awaiting determination of enemy combatant status to be indefinitely held exactly if they were an enemy combatant. That's #1. #2 is that the illegality of wiretapping is based upon telecommunications law, which itself is actually based on constitutional law, constitutional provisions and related legal decisions, specifically starting with amendment 4 of the Bill of Rights.
The second amendment ordeal was done by a court and is a no brainer. I'm wondering why it had to get to an apeals(sic) court to be rulled(sic) on in this manor(sic).
Because there is a strong push by those who see the role of the nation and state as that of "we know what is best for you" to try and show the prefatory clause of the 2nd amendment as defining a military limit to the operative clause. The recent court decision did an excellent job of entirely debunking that line of thinking; though reading what the dissenting member had to say will show that even in the direct light of the facts, some people are unable to reason well.
You make false claims about the consitution(sic) only to serve you(sic) own benifit(sic).
I made entirely accurate claims with regard to the constitution because many people, like you, aren't paying enough attention and don't know what is going on, or cannot place current events into relevant context.
Anhd(sic) this isn't about democrat and republican. Forget i(sic) even mentioned them. It is about right and wrong. I'm going to sit back and laugh with my gun in my hands when the terrorist(sic) start blowing up crowded shopping malls and office buildings because they know it will get someone to listen and get them negotiations. After all, that what catering to the terorist will bring.
No, it's not about the political parties. It is not about "catering" to terrorists, either; we have plenty of very effective laws that allow us to deal with terrorists. What it is about is the wanton erosion of the rights of the innocent citizen under the pretext of "doing something about" terrorism.
For instance, if the feds wanted to stop the hijacking of airliners for use as missiles, a simple aircraft modification process would have done so: thoroughly armor the cockpit wall, remove the door into the main cabin, remove communications into the cockpit except for two buttons. One to indicate "last command complete" (such as fasten seatbelts) and the other to indicate "medical emergency, please land ASAP." That completely eliminates the ability of terrorists to take over the aircraft, and also creates no interference with travel and no secret lists of "undesirables."
This kind of solution - one born of clear thinking instead of the drive to control - is available for almost every problem we face; it is the wrong choice, each and every time, to abridge freedom in order to attempt to thwart terrorists.
No one wants to "cater" to terrorists. But some people disagree over the idea that the rights we have enjoyed are less important than restrictions that might, under very narrow and unlikely circumstances, catch a terrorist. For example, RealID is being pushed as an anti-terrorist measure. However, all of the 9/11 hijackers had valid ID; Many terrorists have no previous record and therefore no metric exists to prevent them from getting a valid ID; Finally, suicide types aren't subject to after-action punitive measures. Therefore, no characteristic of the RealID system can guarantee preventing a terrorist from getting a valid ID; Also, this is
Most constitutional rights aren't supposed to come with criminal penalties for their violation.
The constitution doesn't apply to "the people." That's a common misconception. The constitution lays out the hard boundaries that the federal, and in some cases the states, governments must obey in order to remain legitimate. Actions by these government entities that violate the constituting authority - the constitution itself - are illegitimate, not illegal. In other words, there is no justification for those actions, and they are outside the bounds of what the government was established to do.
The government isn't a punishable entity. Only people within it are. So only laws (hopefully based upon the constitution, but that isn't happening lately) written to force individuals within the government to comply with those ideals can affect individuals. A good - no, perfect - example is Bush's oath to defend the constitution. He swore he would; he not only didn't, he has outright damaged it directly by signing the Military Commissions act and authorizing wiretaps without warrants, among other things. But there is no penalty for violating that oath; no law that calls him to account for such acts. The oath, of course, is therefore a completely empty act, like most claims and statement in American politics, I might add. To quote President George W. Bush regarding the constitution: "it's just a goddamned piece of paper."
As far as citizens go, we didn't write the constitution, we didn't sign it, we had, and have, no input into it, and it really only affects us as far as the government obeys it. Lately, that isn't very much. If they aren't outright violating one portion, they're wantonly misinterpreting another. There have been a couple of signs of change in the right direction in the last week or so; 2nd Amendment and habeas corpus but overall, things are pretty bleak.
...if the cops search you in violation of your 4th amendment rights, then they've performed an "illegal" search. But they don't get a criminal penalty.
Right. That's why they keep doing it.
...information seized illegally, outside of the bounds of the statute, will not be available to federal prosecutors, not that anyone in the FBI will be prosecuted
Right. That's why they keep doing it.
This is a fundamental flaw in the system. Not only should law enforcement — at all levels — not be exempt from the law, they should be held to a considerably higher standard, as they are in a position of great power and responsibility. They can literally ruin your life with a a single action; it is obviously important, critical even, that they perform those actions with great care and under absolutely unforgiving limitations.
Slashdot Mirror
That's called a binary system for both planets and stars; it happens when the center of gravity of the orbiting system isn't inside either object. With planets, if one orbits the other such that the center of gravity of the system is inside A, then B is a moon. Stars ought to be treated the same way, relatively speaking, but moon isn't an easily shared term. Client star? Seems... dry. But accurate. Daughter implies that the client came from the same accretion disk... no certainly that will always happen. Captured star?
So... if the earth was moved to an orbit in the same plane with pluto, it would no longer be a planet? Or maybe you mean if the earth was moved to an orbit with a period and distance of Pluto's? That'd kill everything on it, but I don't really follow the reasoning that causes it to lose the status of "planet", even so. Am I missing something along your line of thinking?
What about it? Half a dozen isn't any surprise to me. This sub-thread was started by a claim of 1000+, which is what got me interested, because it seems... optimistic. No one has backed the claim up yet, but the thread's life isn't over yet. Regardless, I'm all for discovering new planets. Even thousands of them, which would be absolutely fascinating. Let's do it!
I'm not measuring at all. But what it comes down to is a mass issue; once the mass gets above a particular point for any one composition, the object will force itself into a sphere. At that point, I'm calling it a planet, unless that ignites a fusion reaction, in which case I'm calling it a star. Not because it is a sphere, and not because it has a specific value of mass, but because the latter provoked the former. The amount of mass that causes this will vary by composition. For gas, it is relatively low; for hard rock and hard metals, it is relatively high. But the result — a star-orbiting sphere — is relatively constant, and we're going to find them all over the universe. When we do, I'm going to call them planets. You can call them anything you like, of course. :-)
Lots and lots of moons! A "moon belt."
Rings are cool.
Yes, certainly. How does "mostly sphere-like" sit with you? ":-)
You do realize that you are responding to a thread in which I delineate my personal view; and in no way express a concern that you adopt it, or that anyone else adopt it, right? So when you say "that is the problem", I must respond with that is your problem, because I don't have a problem - I am perfectly content with my view. You just continue right along with your ideas about debris, and more power to you. My views in this matter are also not of consequence to the scientific community, as space science is not my field. However - as these designations are a matter of voting by a body I have no affiliation with - I decline to be overly concerned with what they decide, and in this particular matter, I intend to ignore them.
As for your comments about atoms, I don't quite see for what reason you are attempting to bring them into the conversation at all. Perhaps if your exposition were a little more detailed, we'd all learn something. Or not; but as is, you're being more than a little opaque, or perhaps simply confused.
Ceres is indeed a planet. What I'm looking to do here is not disturb the originally discovered set of planets, not prevent adding to the list. It is apparent that adding to the list is inevitable, no matter whose definitions one uses.
Read the thread, and re-read the original post. Your issues are addressed. You just failed to read or understand them.
It doesn't include the moon, because the moon orbits the earth. You should read more carefully. The fact that such a definition might include some objects you think of as asteroids is irrelevant; the other definition takes planetary status away from pluto - that's far more disturbing than adding such a label to big, spherical, star-orbiting natural bodies, which if we had encountered them anywhere else, we would almost certainly call planets.
Yeah, maybe you should actually read the thread. That'd help a lot. :-)
I'm well aware of the Kuiper belt. What I am not aware of is that anyone has determined that more than a very few of them have formed themselves into spheres or spheroids, and which of them are orbiting the sun, as opposed to each other. Without that information, one cannot assume they add the claimed "thousand planets", though I agree it is possible they do. If we have thousands of planets, well, then we do. The first nine we discovered, however, aren't going to change their identity because of that.
So, are those "chunks of rock" spheres or spheroids? Because if they aren't - and I rather suspect most of them aren't, because the smaller the mass, the less likely it is to form a sphere - they fall into the "asteroid" or "comet" classifications neatly. Perhaps they aren't even solid, but just discrete rock clusters.
No, Pluto is a planet. No question about it. When it comes to matters of perception, we get to choose our authorities. And the folks who voted Pluto out of planet status aren't in my chain of authority in this matter.
I didn't suggest we use "spheroidness" as a guide. That's something you came up with; if you want to argue it, you're not addressing my idea, and I won't take the other side.
The concept I brought up was where objects naturally made themselves into spheroids because their mass and composition made that happen, which is something else entirely than the stand-alone idea of a sphere, and does have both upper and lower bounds, as I described.
No, I try not to get directly involved in activities where groups of people unqualified to deal with subjects I know something about can outvote me, or where I must vote on things I know considerably less about than others. The US political system is based on the insane idea that any two idiots can reasonably outvote a genius, and also that any two uninformed people can outvote an informed person. That is why it is such an awful mess, and the country itself as a direct consequence. I have better things to do with my time.
Well, how many objects that you would call an asteroid have formed themselves into spheres or oblate spheroids? It takes quite a bit of mass for that to happen, because the thing has to basically crush itself into shape. That is a line that physics defines quite naturally for a mass of any given composition; for instance, there is no option whatsoever for the earth to be anything but a spheroid consequent to its own gravity; while Deimos or Phobos, while quite substantial, have no chance whatsoever of becoming spheroids under their own gravity. So in fact, your "continuum" has a very real lower bound. There's an upper bound too; get too large, and you'll either get ignition or collapse — and now we have a stellar object.
I think it already says that, I certainly intended it to:
"...has characteristics such that the main mass has formed a sphere or oblate spheroid and it will remain that way barring impact with something"
That allows for gas planets, rocky planets, and molten planets. The planet has to form on its own, or it is artificial.
In my view, debris is the result of the actions of intelligence, so no, planets aren't made of debris. They are generally made of materials condensed out of a stellar (or proto-stellar) accretion disk, or otherwise naturally found in space.
I guess my first reaction is, where did you get that number? We have 11 or so major planets, collectively they have a fair number of moons; once you remove those from the count, what and where are the other naturally formed spheres or oblate spheroids? Secondly... I'm not sure I have a problem with them being planets in any case, but as I am unaware of them, and I'm kind of a space bug, I don't see that "popular use" is affected. Most people seem to think Pluto was invented by Walt Disney and orbits Mickey Mouse. :-)
No, because marbles didn't (and wouldn't) naturally form themselves into spheres in space. I'd just call them "artificial debris."
There are lots more things, but most are pretty much unchanged - only the debate about what a planet is has really been stirring things up. For instance, if an object was formed by intelligent beings rather than nature, then it gets prefixed with "artificial." I also like "planetesimal" for planets too small to walk on, "planetoid" for planets that are very low mass (specifically, if you can jump off it and reach escape velocity, it's a planetoid), James Blish's "gas giant" for planets that are gaseous and transition from a gas to a solid of the same material at some depth based upon pressure, "spacecraft" for anything that was under its own power or let go inertially from something else under its own power, "satellite" for artificial moons, and "debris" for anything in space that that intelligence is responsible for, that doesn't currently perform some useful function.
I never stopped considering Pluto a planet; the new definition is no more attractive than the previous hand-waving, and frankly, I like my definition better anyway:
Think about the known solar system in those terms. Does that not put everything in its place in a reasonable fashion, without disturbing our previous understandings?
No. It comes down to how the soldiers define a "domestic enemy." It may be clear that the most significant domestic enemy we have is the government. The military, you must remember, is not the government.
The military commissions act contains within it wording to imprison any person, including any American citizen, indefinitely and with absolutely no recourse, rights, or notice. This ability is contained within the the phraseology that allows anyone being held awaiting determination of enemy combatant status to be indefinitely held exactly if they were an enemy combatant. That's #1. #2 is that the illegality of wiretapping is based upon telecommunications law, which itself is actually based on constitutional law, constitutional provisions and related legal decisions, specifically starting with amendment 4 of the Bill of Rights.
Because there is a strong push by those who see the role of the nation and state as that of "we know what is best for you" to try and show the prefatory clause of the 2nd amendment as defining a military limit to the operative clause. The recent court decision did an excellent job of entirely debunking that line of thinking; though reading what the dissenting member had to say will show that even in the direct light of the facts, some people are unable to reason well.
I made entirely accurate claims with regard to the constitution because many people, like you, aren't paying enough attention and don't know what is going on, or cannot place current events into relevant context.
No, it's not about the political parties. It is not about "catering" to terrorists, either; we have plenty of very effective laws that allow us to deal with terrorists. What it is about is the wanton erosion of the rights of the innocent citizen under the pretext of "doing something about" terrorism.
For instance, if the feds wanted to stop the hijacking of airliners for use as missiles, a simple aircraft modification process would have done so: thoroughly armor the cockpit wall, remove the door into the main cabin, remove communications into the cockpit except for two buttons. One to indicate "last command complete" (such as fasten seatbelts) and the other to indicate "medical emergency, please land ASAP." That completely eliminates the ability of terrorists to take over the aircraft, and also creates no interference with travel and no secret lists of "undesirables."
This kind of solution - one born of clear thinking instead of the drive to control - is available for almost every problem we face; it is the wrong choice, each and every time, to abridge freedom in order to attempt to thwart terrorists.
No one wants to "cater" to terrorists. But some people disagree over the idea that the rights we have enjoyed are less important than restrictions that might, under very narrow and unlikely circumstances, catch a terrorist. For example, RealID is being pushed as an anti-terrorist measure. However, all of the 9/11 hijackers had valid ID; Many terrorists have no previous record and therefore no metric exists to prevent them from getting a valid ID; Finally, suicide types aren't subject to after-action punitive measures. Therefore, no characteristic of the RealID system can guarantee preventing a terrorist from getting a valid ID; Also, this is
The constitution doesn't apply to "the people." That's a common misconception. The constitution lays out the hard boundaries that the federal, and in some cases the states, governments must obey in order to remain legitimate. Actions by these government entities that violate the constituting authority - the constitution itself - are illegitimate, not illegal. In other words, there is no justification for those actions, and they are outside the bounds of what the government was established to do.
The government isn't a punishable entity. Only people within it are. So only laws (hopefully based upon the constitution, but that isn't happening lately) written to force individuals within the government to comply with those ideals can affect individuals. A good - no, perfect - example is Bush's oath to defend the constitution. He swore he would; he not only didn't, he has outright damaged it directly by signing the Military Commissions act and authorizing wiretaps without warrants, among other things. But there is no penalty for violating that oath; no law that calls him to account for such acts. The oath, of course, is therefore a completely empty act, like most claims and statement in American politics, I might add. To quote President George W. Bush regarding the constitution: "it's just a goddamned piece of paper."
As far as citizens go, we didn't write the constitution, we didn't sign it, we had, and have, no input into it, and it really only affects us as far as the government obeys it. Lately, that isn't very much. If they aren't outright violating one portion, they're wantonly misinterpreting another. There have been a couple of signs of change in the right direction in the last week or so; 2nd Amendment and habeas corpus but overall, things are pretty bleak.
Right. That's why they keep doing it.
Right. That's why they keep doing it.
This is a fundamental flaw in the system. Not only should law enforcement — at all levels — not be exempt from the law, they should be held to a considerably higher standard, as they are in a position of great power and responsibility. They can literally ruin your life with a a single action; it is obviously important, critical even, that they perform those actions with great care and under absolutely unforgiving limitations.