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Thread: Pluto is no longer considered a planet...

  1. #1
    Glenn's Avatar
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    Pluto is no longer considered a planet...

    ..but uranus still is!

    http://news.yahoo.com/fc/science/astronomy_and_space

    Astronomers say Pluto is not a planet

    5 minutes ago

    PRAGUE, Czech Republic - Leading astronomers declared Thursday that Pluto is no longer a planet under historic new guidelines that downsize the solar system from nine planets to eight.

    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.

    Although astronomers applauded after the vote, Jocelyn Bell Burnell — a specialist in neutron stars from Northern Ireland who oversaw the proceedings — urged those who might be "quite disappointed" to look on the bright side.

    "It could be argued that we are creating an umbrella called 'planet' under which the dwarf planets exist," she said, drawing laughter by waving a stuffed Pluto of Walt Disney fame beneath a real umbrella.

    The decision by the prestigious international group spells out the basic tests that celestial objects will have to meet before they can be considered for admission to the elite cosmic club.

    For now, membership will be restricted to the eight "classical" planets in the solar system: Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune.

    Much-maligned Pluto doesn't make the grade under the new rules for a planet: "a celestial body that is in orbit around the sun, has sufficient mass for its self-gravity to overcome rigid body forces so that it assumes a ... nearly round shape, and has cleared the neighborhood around its orbit."

    Pluto is automatically disqualified because its oblong orbit overlaps with Neptune's.

    Instead, it will be reclassified in a new category of "dwarf planets," similar to what long have been termed "minor planets." The definition also lays out a third class of lesser objects that orbit the sun — "small solar system bodies," a term that will apply to numerous asteroids, comets and other natural satellites.

    It was unclear how Pluto's demotion might affect the mission of NASA's New Horizons spacecraft, which earlier this year began a 9 1/2-year journey to the oddball object to unearth more of its secrets.

    The decision at a conference of 2,500 astronomers from 75 countries was a dramatic shift from just a week ago, when the group's leaders floated a proposal that would have reaffirmed Pluto's planetary status and made planets of its largest moon and two other objects.

    That plan proved highly unpopular, splitting astronomers into factions and triggering days of sometimes combative debate that led to Pluto's undoing.

    Now, two of the objects that at one point were cruising toward possible full-fledged planethood will join Pluto as dwarfs: the asteroid Ceres, which was a planet in the 1800s before it got demoted, and 2003 UB313, an icy object slightly larger than Pluto whose discoverer, Michael Brown of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena has nicknamed Xena.

    Charon, the largest of Pluto's three moons, is no longer under consideration for any special designation.
    This article is dripping with nerdery.
    Last edited by Glenn; 08-24-2006 at 10:27 AM.

  2. #2
    I've been listening to some of the reports on this on NPR the last couple weeks. At one point a definition was considered that would have designated 400+ objects as planets and those interviewed kept calling the dwarf planets "plutons".

    Looks like they need a new pneumonic device. My Very Eager Mother Just Served Us Nachos? Of course that doesn't include the number 8 in it.
    STEW BEEF!

  3. #3
    Pluto has to be pissed. That's segregation.

    Quote Originally Posted by WTFchris
    MoTown is right.

  4. #4
    NOT TO BE FUCKED WITH Uncle Mxy's Avatar
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    I sense a revolt from the astrologists.

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    One day you are a greek god. The next, just another ball of gas.
    I won the second WTF Sportsbook contest, which means I am either really smart or really lucky. Don't bet on either!

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  7. #7
    the International Astronomical Union stripped Pluto of the planetary status it has held since its discovery in 1930
    .

    Now Pluto knows what Floyd Landis feels like.

    Sucks to be you, Pluto.

  8. #8
    UxKa's Avatar
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    poor pluto... ice not gas fyi. in 4 billion years the moon will have drifted so far from the earth that it will be a planet.

  9. #9
    Does anyone honestly care about space?

  10. #10
    UxKa's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by cruscott35
    Does anyone honestly care about space?
    i do. when im up at the lakehouse i spend endless hours at night looking at the stars. seen some INSANE shooting stars up there that literally lit up the ground more than even a full moon does. you can see satellites and everything when youre that far away from cities. space is the shit, period. do i care that pluto isnt a planet? not really. but space is awesome. hubble pics say it all.

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