So now instead of three new planets for kids to learn, there’s one less. Pluto wasn’t all that great a planet, anyway. It wasn’t even the planet farthest out for most of the last quarter-century!
After a tumultuous week of clashing over the essence of the cosmos, the International Astronomical Union stripped Pluto of the planetary status it has held since its discovery in 1930. The new definition of what is — and isn’t — a planet fills a centuries-old black hole for scientists who have labored since Copernicus without one.
The only real question is, does it really matter? It’s still out there, no matter what we call it.
A one way trip to Mars would be cool…..IMNSHO 🙂
WKW – They’ll have to rename the white dwarf stars to “Caucasian little person stars” too
Besides that, its an over-reported change in classifications. Pluto is there. It is not similar enough to the remaining 8 planets to remain one. Whatever – the textbooks will catch up in 30 years. – As I understand it they’ve found a sort of second asteroid belt out in Pluto’s region – perhaps it is just a big asteroid then (like Ceres, the biggest rock in the main belt)
Did anyone else notice how MSNBC can’t count?
“Pluto and its moon Charon, which would both have been planets under the initial definition proposed Aug. 16, now get demoted because they are part of a sea of other objects that occupy the same region of space. Earth and the other eight large planets have, on the other hand, cleared broad swaths of space of any other large objects.”
Eight? That’s the new total number of planets. Someone wasn’t paying attention when they wrote the article…
why is pluto no longer a planet it is still out so how come why did you vote on this who said this?
“We, as planetary scientists and astronomers, do not agree with the IAU’s definition of a planet, nor will we use it. A better definition is needed.”
http://www.ipetitions.com/petition/planetprotest
“The petition organiser, Mark Sykes, who is director of the Planetary Science Institute in Tucson, Arizona, said the IAU definition of a planet “does not meet fundamental scientific standards and should be set aside.””
“NASA’s New Horizons mission to Pluto. Its spacecraft — which also bears some of the ashes of US astronomer Clyde Tombaugh, who discovered Pluto in 1930 — blasted off in January this year, months before the IAU decision that relegated Pluto’s status.”
Source: http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20060901/sc_afp/
scienceastronomypluto
In my mind Pluto will always be a planet. The IAU designation should not stand.
Government must have some creative scientists. I guess we wouldn’t have NASA without them. I guess I had war on my mind last week. Too much of that gets you thinking mad. Nothing much we can do about that. You have mad scientists out there.
I just saw this.
“The verb “to Pluto,” meaning to demote or devalue something as the former planet was, has been voted the American Dialect Society’s 2006 Word of the Year.”
I bet it doesn’t catch on.