Pluto: Planet or not?

OK, its crunch time for Pluto, with astromoners meeting to discuss whether to demote it from planethood: http://www.guardian.co.uk/space/arti...844050,00.html

But what does the backroom think? On the one hand, Patrick Moore says its not a planet, and frankly what Patrick Moore thinks about the solar system is next to gospel. On the other hand, an extra 50 or so planets would really mess with the astrologers, so that would be good. Also it would mean that some gilrs would be borne under the sign of Xena, which would be quite sexy.

My Boys Book of the Planets (copyright 1973) clearly says Pluto is a planet, and, although i may not quite have fulfilled my childhood ambition to be an astronaut, I say leave my space faring memories alone. For me Pluto is and will always be a planet.

Not. It isn't on the same plane as all the other planets....

GAH

It was always a runaway moon from neptune.

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Iwan Williams, president of the IAU's planetary systems sciences committee and astronomer at Queen Mary University, London, said: "Personally, I'd include them all as planets, but in normal conversation, we'd slightly qualify all our planets and say we have four terrestrial planets, four giant planets and however many dwarf planets."

A popular idea is to count only objects above a certain size.

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I agree with this guy, it would be better to remove our one definition band and introduce different grades of planets as he says ranging from dwarf to giant the advantage of this is easy classification is if we in the future come across something that is spherical and orbits a sun but doesnt match any of the classification we can create a new band for it.

so is pluto a planet? yes its a dwarf planet

Lots of people think that science is fixed and "correcct", becuase the science they were taught at school was exactly like this. Write in your science book that there are only eight planets in the solar system and your teacher will mark it wrong. This is an excellent chance for astronomers to remind us that science develops, and ideas change as the amount of evidence increases. We now know much more about Pluto, and what we know now suggests that it is much smaller than the other planets and more discoveries in the Solar System suggest that other objects are just as much planets as Pluto.

Be scientific. Demote it.

What would really be funny would be if they find something bigger then Mercury out there. That would really mess things up.

I think they need more steps on that asteroid/planet scale. Dwarf planet sounds good.

That makes a gah right?

Holst says it isn't.

Demote it!

Pluto is not a planet, it is a random celestial object raised to the status of planet only because the ancient astronomers of the 20th century lacked the means to see all the other pluto-like 'planets'.

We, children of the modern era, now know better. :book:

Calling Pluto still a planet is akin to thinking Bechuanaland or the Gold Coast are existing countries, or expecting an operator when dialling a phone number. It's so twentienth century...

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Originally Posted by Ironside

What would really be funny would be if they find something bigger then Mercury out there. That would really mess things up.

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After Pluto I think Mercury is the smallest planet, therefore everythingis bigger than Mercury...

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Originally Posted by Pannonian

Holst says it isn't.

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But he did write the Planets Suite before Pluto was discovered.

Not about Pluto, but very interesting:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/5241774.stm

Very intriguing, Doctor. Thanks.

I'd be tempted to say yes, merely to annoy astrologers. No more easy money!

But in reality no. It's part of the Kuiper Belt objects.

Hmm, I smell some evil plot to throw over my worldview.:sweatdrop: :help:
Of course it's a planet, you all just like to jump on the smaller ones.:inquisitive:

it has a moon and an atmosphere,... I'd say yes. And if it doesn't qualifiy just make an exception. It has been called a planet so long...

Plenty of asteroids have moons. I say Pluto's out of the club! Kick it to the curb. Beside, I bet we're going to find even larger planetoids within five years ...

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it has a moon

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2 more where discovered last year.

I like the dwarf/medium/giant idea meself.

ANd totally off topic but.....


http://www.extrasolar.net/

Awesome site

its a planet. i saw pluto on it too.

Of course it is a planet

This is another case of politics deciding an outcome rather then science. There are a lot of objects similar to Pluto and a lot more in the future.

If Pluto is a planet why aren't all the members of the asteriod belt also planets?

Why aren't all the comets planets too?

I think a better definition of a major planet is an object that under its own gravity and rotation forms into a fairly uniform spheroid. Under this definiton the objects in the asteriod belt are not planets. Pluto can still be considered a planet within this definiton.

Now the difference between a planet and and a moon is that a planet would be one that orbits a star versus one that orbits another planet.

Also not there already are two classifications of planets Major (the nine) and the rest are minor.

About time Pluto got pwned...

Divide them into classifications with range.. the dwarf/giant classification idea would nice, especially since we're finding more and more variance in planets both within and outside the solar system now.

Its not the size of the boat its the motion of the ocean and this ocean is ice blye and cold

Isn't there something that is farther out which is larger than Pluto? Would that then be considered a planet? It even has a moon!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2003_UB313


If pluto is a planet, than so is UB313. And that means we have ten planets.

It is what it is.

What a serious matter to worry about.. As if Pluto isn't classified a planet, thousands, no million, no billions would die.. 0-i

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Originally Posted by Grey_Fox

After Pluto I think Mercury is the smallest planet, therefore everythingis bigger than Mercury...

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But Mercury cannot be demoted from its planet status and therefore everything larger than Mercury has to be a planet as long as it circles around the sun.

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Originally Posted by Papewaio

I think a better definition of a major planet is an object that under its own gravity and rotation forms into a fairly uniform spheroid. Under this definiton the objects in the asteriod belt are not planets. Pluto can still be considered a planet within this definiton.

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Wouldn't that make Ceres a planet? It's a fairly uniform spheroid, but is only about 950 km in diameter.
Gentlemen, forget what your courtesans have told you: size does matter! :laugh4:
CEO Nwabudike Morgan

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Originally Posted by x-dANGEr

What a serious matter to worry about.. As if Pluto isn't classified a planet, thousands, no million, no billions would die.. 0-i

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Well... most of the opposition of demoting Pluto comes from USA, who currently only found one planet, namely Pluto.
Considering the current US goverment, that pride loss... And NASA has been threatening with building military space stations if Pluto is demoted...

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

... Or the people getting most annoyed with this outside the scientiffic community will be the schools, as they'll need to update thier books. ~;)

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If Pluto is a planet why aren't all the members of the asteriod belt also planets?

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Its Asteroidism, that's why.

Lets hope they find an earth sized planet in the Kuipfer belt (sp?). Preferably with Cybermen living on it. That will shut all you planet naysayers up.

I'll invest my money in gold then.

well Peter Griffin had his own gravatational pull. do you consider him a planet i think so.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/4795755.stm

"plutons" :dizzy2:

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Originally Posted by The Spartan

well Peter Griffin had his own gravatational pull. do you consider him a planet i think so.

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:laugh4: :laugh4: :laugh4:
Well I don't think that is quite the issue.

After discussing it with my science teacher he thinks that it is just an attempt of scientists who can't make any real discoveries to get their names in the text books. Or the type of scientists who feel the need to question everything, who go to the hair dressers and say "Now is that REALLY a har cut?".

Pluto has always been a planet and there is no decent reason why we should change it now.

Having the classes of planets is a much better idea.

Surely we should be asking ourselves....

We need a 'nails' Solarsystem, not a pansy one. When and indeed it might happen, we meet a new civilisation, we can say.. eh?! call this a planet? We've got a couple of these at home. We call them Garages... somewhere to park your car. Now hand over your technology and natural resources or the women and kids with tentacles get it.

This is where I was coming from, but I was worried the aliens would say "pah, only 8 planets, we've got 67, now, we call this a laser gun..."

Wnat we need is about 40 planets the size of Pluto, all with anti-matter missiles on, that would really show aliens that the human race is not one to mess with.

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Originally Posted by English assassin

This is where I was coming from, but I was worried the aliens would say "pah, only 8 planets, we've got 67, now, we call this a laser gun..."

Wnat we need is about 40 planets the size of Pluto, all with anti-matter missiles on, that would really show aliens that the human race is not one to mess with.

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Maybe then we would stop killing each other:inquisitive: .........nah that's just ridiculous

Damn, beaten to it with a quote before I could edit, anyway, I just wanted to add that its a stroke of genius to call these new planets Plutons. No one would dare invade a solar system that is packed with Plutons would they? Its one bad ass name.

Gentlemen, I declare that the War on Space-Aliens is won.

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Originally Posted by English assassin

Gentlemen, I declare that the War on Space-Aliens is won.

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:alien::whip:

anyway... i was watching the news and this guy said 'it's just gonna get people confused' but i think that calling things which aren't quite a planet a 'pluton' is quite cool... especially since we've got one in our solar system and we've won the war against aliens (apparently)

Its not really a planet, it has a dodgy orbit.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/4798205.stm

Gentlemen, the rocks now have an equal number to the large and small planets!

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Originally Posted by Wigferth Ironwall

Its not really a planet, it has a dodgy orbit.

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That's very plutonist.

Just because a rock is a bit eccentric doesn't mean it's dodgy. We now say orbitally challenged.

:wink:

"Differently orbited", please. The post above is orbitist and I demand its removal.

LOL, EA. That was a genuine out-loud laugh. Thanks!

whahahahahah Banquo :P that really made me laugh

They are going to call Pluto a Pluton and all the others that are about the same size which is about three

Pluto is a small, worthless rock that for some reason is called a planet. The discussion over whether there should be 12 planets is ridiculous and hilarious at the same time.

I'm not laughing. I actually feel sorry for the thing. Next we'll be declasifying people with dwarfism to Plutons. Shame.

It is, size doesn't matter, atleast that's what many dissappointed women I've known in the past would say to me!!!:help:

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Originally Posted by ZombieFriedNuts

They are going to call Pluto a Pluton and all the others that are about the same size which is about three

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Plus about another 100 that haven't been spotted or properly identified yet. Maybe more.

None of the planets have a perfectly round orbit, the fact that plutos is at a different angle to the other ones doesn't matter, I say it is a planet, it will be hard to define the difference between planet and pluton unless there is an exact minimum radius or volume or something that it must be below.

It's official and the voting is in.

Pluto no longer a planet.

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

Pluto loses status as a planet
Artist's impression of Pluto, BBC
Pluto's status has been contested for many years
Astronomers meeting in the Czech capital have voted to strip Pluto of its status as a planet.

About 2,500 experts were in Prague for the International Astronomical Union's (IAU) general assembly.

Astronomers rejected a proposal that would have retained Pluto as a planet and brought three other objects into the cosmic club.

Pluto has been considered a planet since its discovery in 1930 by the American Clyde Tombaugh.

The ninth planet will now effectively be airbrushed out of school and university textbooks.

The decision was made at a meeting of the International Astronomical Union (IAU) in Prague. The astronomers voted by raising their yellow ballot papers for a count.

"The eight planets are Mercury, Earth, Venus, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune," said the IAU resolution, which was passed following a week of stormy debate.


PLUTO - A 'DEMOTED PLANET'

The IAU's proposal to raise the number of planets in the Solar System to 12, adding the asteroid Ceres, Pluto's "moon" Charon and the distant object known as 2003 UB313, met with opposition.

Robin Catchpole, of the Institute of Astronomy in Cambridge, told the BBC News website: "My own personal opinion was to leave things as they were; I met Clyde Tombaugh and thought how nice it was to shake hands with someone who had discovered a planet.

"But since the IAU brought out the proposal for new planets I had been against it - it was going to be very confusing. The best of the alternatives was to leave the major planets as they are and then demote Pluto. So I think this is a far superior situation."

Louis Friedman, executive director of the Planetary Society in California commented: "The classification doesn't matter. Pluto - and all Solar System objects - are mysterious and exciting new worlds that need to be explored and better understood."

Pluto's status has been contested for many years as it is further away and considerably smaller than the eight other planets in our Solar System.

Since the early 1990s, astronomers have found several other objects of comparable size to Pluto in an outer region of the Solar System called the Kuiper Belt.

Some astronomers have long argued that Pluto belongs with this population of small, icy "dwarf planets", not with the objects we call planets.

Allowances were once made for Pluto on account of its size. At just 2,360km (1,467 miles) across, Pluto is significantly smaller than the other planets. But until recently, it was still the biggest known object in the Kuiper Belt.

That changed with the discovery of 2003 UB313 by Professor Mike Brown and colleagues at the California Institute of Technology (Caltech). After being measured with the Hubble Space Telescope, it was shown to be some 3,000km (1,864 miles) in diameter, making it larger than the ninth planet.

Named after the god of the underworld in Roman mythology, it orbits the Sun at an average distance of 5.9 billion kilometres (3.7 billion miles) taking 247.9 Earth years to complete a single circuit of the Sun.

An unmanned US spacecraft, New Horizons, is due to fly by Pluto and the Kuiper Belt in 2015.

As far as I understand it, the plutons have been sent packing too. Not least because the geologists complained they have all the plutons.

So, there are only eight planets. Pluto should have hired GW's electoral lawyers. :idea2:

...Im starting a petition

I don't see why they believe that there is anything wrong with having too many planets. Just because there is more doesn't mean they can't be classed as planets, I am sure that there are solar systems out there with many more planets than our solar system. Somehow I don't see how the primary school children are going to suddenly change after being taught that pluto was the smallest planet in the solar system. :furious3: :furious3: :furious3:

The IAU messed up. The head of something at NASA said that according to their new rules the Earth and Jupiter and others aren't planets either. Have their own asteroids that follow them about, therefore haven't cleared their local space. Behold Jupiter, the new dwarf planet. Hahah.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/5283956.stm

It seems it may not be all over for Pluto.

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The lead scientist on Nasa's robotic mission to Pluto has lambasted the ruling, calling it "embarrassing".

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...well he would wouldn't he....

This is an absolutely great debate, because we get to watch astronomers bitch slap each other and, at the end of the day, its not as if it matters in the slightest.


(Anyway, there can be no debate, Patrick Moore http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patrick_Moore says Pluto is not a planet and for me that has settled the issue. Slightly OT, I read in Wikipedia that Sir Patrick is co-authoring a book on the origins of the Universe with Queen guitarist Brian May. Can this be true? If so this will be a must have book surely. I bet there won't be any of that goobledegook Stephen Hawking puts in his books with Patrick and Brian. Amend your Amazon wish lists now, whimsy fans.)

International Astronomical Union


IAU 2006 General Assembly: Result of the IAU Resolution votes

The Final IAU Resolution on the definition of "planet" ready for voting

The IAU draft definition of "planet" and "plutons"

What really matters is that similar things are classified in a similar way. I'm sure the confused schoolkids will not be scarred for life, it's the rickety old fuddy-duddies that will not be able to cope. I went through primary school learning £Sd til it suddenly turned into £ and p. IIRC it was granny who couldn't hack decimalisation, not me :laugh4:

There is no room in science for "what people are used too". Might as well still have a geo-centric model if that was acceptable.

And as for the astrological implications, well, without Pluto in my natal chart I wouldn't be half so brooding and sinister :evil:

That's just my "orbitally challenged" tupenn'orth....:2thumbsup:

I'll always think of Pluto as a planet. Why don't they just call this new planet Mickey?