Philotic Web

This is old (like, 2 months ago...) but seriously, what do you think?

I learned it was a planet, I can't unlearn it!

Planet, dangit.

I'd be okay to include a few more in the planet family, but booting out a long-established member seems so rude and unnecessary.

Is anyone else a member of the "When I was your age, Pluto was a planet!" Facebook group? It makes me giggle.

I'm on the fence, but right now, I have to say planet.

Here is a solution that I like: In 1999, the Minor Planet Center at the astronomical union proposed assigning Pluto the number 10000 in the same catalog, to give it dual citizenship as both a planet and a member of the Kuiper Belt, a ring of icy debris beyond Neptune.

Unfortunately, it didn't work.

Pluto's a planet. And while we're at it, let's make all the rocks in asteroid belt and Kuiper belt and Oort cloud and the comets planets as well.

Pluto was designated as a planet because at the time we didn't have the knowledge of the outer limits of the solar system we now possess. If we're going to keep Pluto as a planet for sentimental reasons, we might as well reinstate Earth as the center of the universe.

I'm in the same boat as EL. I'd have had an easier time taking a deep breath and adding a few planets instead of axing one.

The problem is, it wouldn't be adding a few planets. It would be adding hundreds of them. As if my very enormous mother hasn't already sat up enough pumpkins, already. By even the most broad, intuitive definitions, pluto shouldn't be considered a planet. I mean objects that we have long since called asteroids have turned out to be spheroidal... so what then? And Pluto hasn't been a planet for thaaaat long. Less than a hundred years, right?

I mean, come on. Science should, if nothing else, adapt to accommodate new information. This is adaptation. Hurts a bit, but it's for the best.

I'm actually pretty sure my argument just made three more people vote against me. Way to rally your support behind me, people.... *grumble*

It's all about you, Ollie. Always about you.

Well, there's no way anyone would vote for Pluto being a planet for any other reason. That would be buffoonery.

don't fret ollie, i voted with ya.

Thank you, sir! Although I fear I may have unwittingly implied I care more about this topic than I actually do. To set the record straight, I don't, really. But it's still fun to chat about.

I'm curious what this is going to do about the Pluto/Kuiper express. Has anyone heard, or done the research that I'm too lazy to do?

According to the present acknowledged definition, Pluto is not a planet. I also think that Science is about refining what we know.
Using categories has a purpose, and personal feelings about “poor Pluto” shouldn’t affect that.

Being afraid to change one’s “established facts” should not be associated with science. There are enough other areas where “change is bad” by definition.

A.

I can see the logic in what the others are saying about why Pluto should not be a planet. They even made me want to change what I thought about it. But I cannot unlearn Pluto as a planet and therefore my children and grandchildren will grow up with the idea that Pluto is, indeed, a planet.

What can I say? I'm a stubborn man.

Pluto = Planet

Thank you, that is all.

Using categories has a purpose, and personal feelings about “poor Pluto” shouldn’t affect that.

I'll anthropomorphize anything I darn well want! And there's nothing you can do about it!

I see ...
And I was about to impose you all my way on the matter ...

A.

I say it's not a planet. I've always heard for years how they don't have a formal definition for planet; now they do. And I think it's a really good definintion. Pluto, unfortunately didn't cut the bill. One day, maybe, who knows?

On the other token, I also grew up with Pluto as a planet. So it will be hard changing my own feelings. Pluto by any other name will still have a place in an icy corner of my heart.

you know, i was taught that pluto was a planet.

on the other hand, my grandfather was taught that black people were a godless horde and should be discriminated against.

so are all you people racist?

"Logic!... Why don't they teach logic at these schools?"

Laughing out Loud mr_thebrain.


Of course Pluto is a planet, it's just not a Planet. It will always be a (dwarf) planet to me, but I also see that it isn't defined as one and I can accept that dichotomy.

i saw this icon on livejournal and laughed for about three minutes.

It's all in Plato, Zona.

Kelly, I saw that one floating around too and had a nice giggle about it.

its a planet
has a moon, an atmosphere, orbits the sun...
if they have to kick 1 out it should b moonless and almost atmosphereless mercury

I'm going to give you two pictures that explain why it shouldn't be a planet:





Every other planet in the Solar System rotates within 3 degrees of the same ecliptic plane. Plutos, however, is 17 degrees (shown very nicely in the first picture).

Pluto does NOT "clear the neighborhood", or rather, as you can see in the second picture, it is sometimes CLOSER to the sun than Neptunes orbit! The eccentricity of Plutos orbit is also much larger than every other planets (0.2 as opposed to Earths 0.016). This means that the orbit is much less circular than every other planet's orbit.

Pluto does not follow Bodes law. Now, while Bodes law is most likely just a (very strange) coincidence, it is VERY interesting none the less. If you are unsure as to what Bodes law is: http://bellsouthpwp.net/j/o/josephconkl ... itius.html

We have the Terrestrial planets, and the Jovian planets. Terrestial, meaning made PRIMARILY OF ROCK. Jovian meaning made PRIMARILY OF GAS. We have FOUR terrestrial planets of significant size. The smallest, Mercury, has no significant* atmosphere because 1) The escape velocity is low due to it's low mass and 2) The temperature is high. The hotter a gas, the faster it's escape velocity.

Venus, which is commonly called Earths "twin", also has no moon. Why? Because neither Venus nor Mercury have ever been either hit with an asteroid large enough to throw debris in to the orbit of either planet or had an asteroid pass close enough to the planet to get captured by the planets gravitational field. It is PURE CHANCE that the Earth was struck while it was still forming and enough debris was launched in to orbit to cause The Moon. Mars' moons are captures asteroids.

We have objects just as big, if not bigger, than Pluto orbiting the Sun in the "asteroid belt' between Mars and Jupiter. Many of these objects are thought to have moons as well. Should they become planets? Not really. The largest, Ceres, is now considered a "dwarf planet" along with Pluto and Eris. It is a fitting title for such an awkward planet.

The only reason we are still fighting over this is because Pluto is the only planet to have been discovered by an American. The person who discovered Eris is fighting for it still because of his selfish desire to have found a planet. Eris' orbit is even more insane than Pluto's. Pluto is not a planet and it should be content with the time it had as one.

* Mercury often times has a tiny, tiny atmosphere - the lightest gases from the solar wind trapped in the gravitational field around Mercury for a short time. Not really an atmosphere, but you know.

Still, Pluto has a feture no other dwarf planet has. Pluto does have an atmosphere: during most of its revolution, Pluto's atmosphere remains frozen, but when it approaches it's perihelion, the atmosphere sublimates, and it even reaches Charon, to the point of envelop it.

Pluto is way too cool to be just... a minor planet

You're thinking about it all wrong. The major "planets" are all BORING. Pluto on the other hand (and it's "dwarf planet" friends) are all COOL. Therefore, "dwarf planets" > "planets"

Holy cow! I'm with Ollie (of course, I'm an engineer after all), but a little surprised at the results that were revealed upon voting!

[On the other hand, maybe that shouldn't be so surprising... the US is also immune to global warming!]

I just think it's a big mistake using scientific criteria to classify planets. Emotional criteria are much better. After all, a celestial body being a planet or not has no scientific relevance whatsoever. Scientifically, what really matters is origin, composition and structure. Bodies like Titan are much larger and more interesting (from a scientific pov) than Mercury, even though they are in a "lower" place in this hierarchy. Ceres is definitely not "debriss", and Pluto has some comet-like properties.

I read an interesting article (I think in Scientific American?) shortly after the whole Pluto-"demotion" debate. Critics were saying Neptune hasn't "cleared" its orbit due to Pluto, and others pointed out that really no planet has "cleared" its orbit. Earth (and all the other planets) travel in the path of asteroids and comets, and frequently collide.

The author of the article said it may be more correct to say "dominates" its orbit, rather than "cleared" (he also added that Neptune & Pluto are "gravitationally locked" or something like that, so they will never collide. It's Kuiper belt objects that are Pluto's nemesis.)

A bar graph showed the degree to which each planet dominates its orbit. The y-scale was in powers of 10, and Pluto was very low on the scale. (I think it may have shown other dwarf-planets, I feel bad I don't have this article, then I could just quote it, or something.) One thing I found surprising, according to their chart, Earth actually dominates its orbit more than any other planet.

Yeah, very neat article. I read it eagerly... only that i disagree for the said reasons.

Venus, which is commonly called Earths "twin", also has no moon. Why? Because neither Venus nor Mercury have ever been either hit with an asteroid large enough to throw debris in to the orbit of either planet or had an asteroid pass close enough to the planet to get captured by the planets gravitational field. It is PURE CHANCE that the Earth was struck while it was still forming and enough debris was launched in to orbit to cause The Moon. Mars' moons are captures asteroids.

Sorry to nitpick, but i'm pretty sure venus was hit by a very large impact. Last time I read up on the subject, the popular theory about why venus rotates (around its pole, not the sun) backwards is because of a large impact.

Edit: Back to the OP, I dont really see what the big deal is. Pluto still is a planet, its just no longer in the same category as earth. Dwarf planet instead of terrestrial planet.

The way I understood it, when the earth was hit by a mars sized planetoid, instead of being hit dead on, it was more of a glancing blow which managed to through up a lot more material than if it had been a direct blow.

Have you guys seen this new book? It's called "How I Killed Pluto, and Why it Had it Coming", and it's by Mike Brown, the man who discovered Eris, and so essentially killed Pluto.

Snappy title, you've got to give him that.

im going to crack up when that's where the first substantial extra terrestrial life is.