“Plutoid” is the word of the moment for astronomers.
It is the new classification that has been sanctioned for the object that was formerly known as the “ninth planet”…
Pluto’s relegation was felt necessary because new telescope technologies had begun to reveal far-off objects that rivalled the world in size.
Without a new classification, these discoveries raised the prospect that textbooks could soon be talking about 50 or more “planets” in the Solar System.
That prospect proved too much for IAU members who took the historic decision to redefine the Solar System to have just eight major worlds – Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune.
Practically everyone ripped over the original reclassification couldn’t care less about the latest variation on the theme. Pluto is still a planet within their personal cosmology.
Yes I agree. Pluto was a planet and still is…Ok they gave it a Dwarf moniker, but still a planet it is!
Well said. Pluto is to the planetary world, what Santa Claus is to Disney. Or something.
You know, I could go for bestowing the title ‘Planet’ like the Queen does a peerage. We declared that Pluto is a planet and the people have spoken! 🙂
Well, the reason is very scientific==don’t want a solar system with 50 planets in it. Picture won’t fit on the overhead projector, so change the definition.
What would the Church of Reality think of this?
Anything over a certain size with its own periodic orbit of a star is classified a planetary body. Everything else seems to be hype to keep the funds rolling into certain “research” projects.
What does the church say about this Pluto situation? Someone can get into trouble.
/B
Warning: Galileo was imprisoned for life by Pope Paul V for suggesting things didn’t orbit the earth. This Pluto thing sounds a lot more serious.
I thought they said it was demoted from a planet like.. more than 2 years ago.
Keep your eyes on stuff like this. It keeps you from getting angry at our bought and paid for government.
Circuses for the masses.
All this does what for planet earth?
Nobody seems to be looking in the OTHER direction. Clearly Jupiter and Saturn, plus Uranus and Neptune are way too BIG to be real planets.
These—and everything like them—can’t be landed on, so they don’t qualify, either. Call them Boffo bodies, or Boffesimals. Actually they are failed stars so maybe they should be known as quasi stellar ob… no, that one was taken.
I am just so amused that all these people feel the need to call Pluto a planet and stick up for the little gipper. I mean it is not alive and does not care what we call it. As to all those who have solar systems that have Pluto as a planet I wonder how well they know earth. Considering the fact many people cannot find their own country on a globe or a map.
They missed. Not PC.
Dwarf = Little Person
Dwarf Planet = Little Planet
We should rank them by distance from the sun, not size. Why is size so relevant anyway?
Although The IAU has suggested that Pluto and Eris be dubbed ‘plutoids’, Ceres is not included due to its position in the Sol system.
So, did someone slip in a new planet while I wasn’t looking?
More info at New Scientist.
“But the name is not universally loved. “It sounds like ‘hemorrhoid’ and it sounds like ‘asteroid’, and of course these objects are planets and not asteroids,” says planetary scientist Alan Stern of the University Space Research Association in Maryland, US.”
#10 Some of use are spending our time looking at nature, not being so damn smug and self righteous
Looks like KD and many other astronomers won’t call it a ‘plutoid’ either. I certainly won’t.
The IAU is under fire for this mess:
http://cagematch.dvorak.org/index.php/topic,4696.0.html
The fact that Pluto orbits the sun has definitely carries some weight. I don’t care if the definition was changed to dwarf planet.
Just think about it… if Pluto was to run off from its already irregular orbit and crash into the earth, would we still called it dwarf??