First of all - terraforming Mars requires vast amounts of water and other volatile chemicals. Just shooting down Pluto that way is an enormous waste of volatiles. Much better to bash Pluto onto Mars!
Secondly - the major error by IAU is not by demoting Pluto (that's one of the minor ones). The major error is by defining a planet by parameters that are very hard to measure and be sure of. The intention of the voters was to say: we have 8 planets, and that's the end of it! Except that the criteria of what's a planet makes it impossible to say whether they're speaking truth or not, and it's impossible to say whether a newly discovered body is a planet. Bashing Pluto might be fine (or bashing Chiron onto Mars is my favourite), but that won't be the end of that battle!
After considering all the semantic errors in the final text, such as "dwarf planets" that aren't "planets" and not necessarily "dwarfs", and realizing how very hard it is to determine whether a planemo really is a "planet" or a "dwarf planet"... I simply decided that this IAU definition doesn't work. I reject it because of its inherent absurdity. In my vast pain of this major personal trauma, I found a much much better, and very concise and easy definition... here:
http://www.johnstonsarchive.net/astro/planettexas. html
It easily measurable and refers to planemo size, nothing else.
Wikipedia/Theia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theia_(planet), says 4533000000 BC.
I've also seen 4527000000 BC. In essence all older theories of moon creation fails fundamentally to explain why Moon is dry from water, but is otherwise a good chemical copy of Earth. The Impact Theory is pretty much a sole survivor.
And, may i add: Pluto is a slave of Neptune, forced to move in a 2:3 synchronization of Neptunes orbital movement. The big one rulez! Otherwise no planet would qualify.
It can be called a double something (f.ex. double planemo). Probably it can also be called double dwarf planet. But i believe IAU cowardly wanted to avoid being the org forced to elect/reject planets - and thereby getting a political crossfire position.
Oh, Titan and Ganymede aren't captured. They most probably was created in orbit around Saturn and Jupiter respectively. However Triton is probably a captured (former) Dwarf Planet/"Plutonian object", that has changed its status to a Moon about ~4e9 years ago.
But, in this discussion the term 'Planemo' http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Planemo has emerged, and that describes Titan and Ganymede pretty well. Titan, Ganymede and Triton are planemos!
On the other hand, I do not like the fact that a planet should orbit to Sun to be called a planet. On this point, I preferred the original proposal in orbit around a star. I don't see why our solar system should be any different, why planet-like celestial bodies orbitting other stars are not called planets.
Hmm, i'm trying to figure out why. There's a separate definition of exoplanets versus brown dwarf 2nd components of double stars from year 2003AD that might interfer. I think the current decision regards solar system bodies and nothing else.
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Wow, that's odd! Since Swedes would associate Dark-blue=Republican and Some-kind-of-pinkish=Democrat.
Nice idea! But I have 2 objections:
First of all - terraforming Mars requires vast amounts of water and other volatile chemicals. Just shooting down Pluto that way is an enormous waste of volatiles. Much better to bash Pluto onto Mars!
Secondly - the major error by IAU is not by demoting Pluto (that's one of the minor ones). The major error is by defining a planet by parameters that are very hard to measure and be sure of. The intention of the voters was to say: we have 8 planets, and that's the end of it! Except that the criteria of what's a planet makes it impossible to say whether they're speaking truth or not, and it's impossible to say whether a newly discovered body is a planet. Bashing Pluto might be fine (or bashing Chiron onto Mars is my favourite), but that won't be the end of that battle!
After considering all the semantic errors in the final text, such as "dwarf planets" that aren't "planets" and not necessarily "dwarfs", and realizing how very hard it is to determine whether a planemo really is a "planet" or a "dwarf planet" ... I simply decided that this IAU definition doesn't work. I reject it because of its inherent absurdity. In my vast pain of this major personal trauma, I found a much much better, and very concise and easy definition ... here:
http://www.johnstonsarchive.net/astro/planettexas. html
It easily measurable and refers to planemo size, nothing else.
Wikipedia/Theia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theia_(planet), says 4533000000 BC. I've also seen 4527000000 BC. In essence all older theories of moon creation fails fundamentally to explain why Moon is dry from water, but is otherwise a good chemical copy of Earth. The Impact Theory is pretty much a sole survivor.
It's not just you! I cannot see that loony jingles are easier to remember than a list of 8 planets.
And, may i add: Pluto is a slave of Neptune, forced to move in a 2:3 synchronization of Neptunes orbital movement. The big one rulez! Otherwise no planet would qualify.
It can be called a double something (f.ex. double planemo). Probably it can also be called double dwarf planet. But i believe IAU cowardly wanted to avoid being the org forced to elect/reject planets - and thereby getting a political crossfire position.
Oh, Titan and Ganymede aren't captured. They most probably was created in orbit around Saturn and Jupiter respectively. However Triton is probably a captured (former) Dwarf Planet/"Plutonian object", that has changed its status to a Moon about ~4e9 years ago.
But, in this discussion the term 'Planemo' http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Planemo has emerged, and that describes Titan and Ganymede pretty well. Titan, Ganymede and Triton are planemos!