Aug 13, 2008 05:15PM GMT
Question
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Science - Space & Astronomy
Should Pluto be a planet?
I know I'm a little late to the game on this one, but I just wanted to know what everyone else thought about last year's revelation that Pluto isn't really a planet. What do you think? Should it be? (for the record I'm talking about the celestial body and not Mickey's dog... I'll be here all week folks)
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raves +1 posted Aug 14, 2008 03:45PM GMT
Answered Undecided
There sure are a lot of people answering this question who fear change! Guess what folks, science will continue to discover new things and push the envelope; get used to it! What are you, a bunch of flat earthers? Now to answer the question, no Pluto probably should not be designated a planet. -
raves posted Aug 14, 2008 02:40PM GMT
Answered Yes
I myself had lived in the fact that Pluto was a planet. All the sudden we find one more planet orbiting our sun and some dip shit has to say that he is going to class it as a sudo planet. Its still a planet whether sudo or not. People have way oo much time on their hands just to out classify everything. Just let things be. Or, send him to pluto and see for himself what to call it. Idiots. Its like calling Elen Degeneres a Sudo Lesbian because she doesn't look and act gay enough. -
raves posted Aug 14, 2008 09:27AM GMT
Answered Yes
Just as jupiter is a planet, (with satellite moons), why is Pluto any different? We don't know the make up of Jupiter, we assume that pluto is made up of ice, and yet it has it's own Moons. What's the diffenet? SIZE DOES NOT MATTER! Our solar system is made up of different SIZE planets! -
raves +2 posted Aug 14, 2008 07:25AM GMT (edited)
Answered Yes
Just because some brainiac scientists decide that they want to get their name in the history books next to Galileo doesn't mean that the world should fall on its knees and degrade Pluto from planet to dwarf planet/Plutoid. And really, they can't even agree on a name to classify Pluto yet, so what's the point. I say let's keep Pluto as planet number nine and then all of the other 40 objects in the sky can be identified under the category of, "Just another lab grant wanna-be #___.
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raves Aug 14, 2008 06:48PM GMT1. Orbital parameters - Pluto's orbital plane is at a 17-degree angle with the sun's equator, called the ecliptic. All of the other planets' orbits lie within 7-degrees of this plane and all but Mercury are within 3.5-degrees of that ecliptic plane. The only objects in the solar system that have orbits with that high inclination are asteroids and comets.
In addition Pluto's orbit is elliptical (high eccentricity) to the point that only comets and asteroids have orbits that deviate so greatly from circular.
2. Mass - There are seven moons in our solar system, including our own, that are larger than Pluto. Five of them are more massive than Pluto and Charon combined. Mercury, the smallest of the eight planets, is still 28 times more massive than Pluto.
3. Size - Pluto and Charon, lain out edge to edge, cannot stretch across the US. It's not even the largest of the Keiper Belt Objects, as two have now been discovered that are larger.
4. Unique Characteristics - Pluto has -none-. Round under its own gravity? Ceres and several other small objects are as well. Moons? Three other Keiper Belt Objects, one moon, and even a few asteroids have "moons" too. Charon honestly can't even be considered a moon of Pluto because the center of mass for the two, the point about wh...1. Orbital parameters - Pluto's orbital plane is at a 17-degree angle with the sun's equator, called the ecliptic. All of the other planets' orbits lie within 7-degrees of this plane and all but Mercury are within 3.5-degrees of that ecliptic plane. The only objects in the solar system that have orbits with that high inclination are asteroids and comets.
In addition Pluto's orbit is elliptical (high eccentricity) to the point that only comets and asteroids have orbits that deviate so greatly from circular.
2. Mass - There are seven moons in our solar system, including our own, that are larger than Pluto. Five of them are more massive than Pluto and Charon combined. Mercury, the smallest of the eight planets, is still 28 times more massive than Pluto.
3. Size - Pluto and Charon, lain out edge to edge, cannot stretch across the US. It's not even the largest of the Keiper Belt Objects, as two have now been discovered that are larger.
4. Unique Characteristics - Pluto has -none-. Round under its own gravity? Ceres and several other small objects are as well. Moons? Three other Keiper Belt Objects, one moon, and even a few asteroids have "moons" too. Charon honestly can't even be considered a moon of Pluto because the center of mass for the two, the point about which they both orbit, lies outside of the surface of Pluto, so in essence they're moons of each other.
5. Always Known As a Planet - Considering it was only discovered in 1934, it's only been known to exist for about seventy-years, much less being considered a planet. The "ancients" only knew of five planets: Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Jupiter, and Saturn. These are the only ones that can be seen without a telescope, and hence the only ones the "ancients" could have known about. Another point why any astrology predictions that include them are suspect off the bat: Ptolemy, the progenitor of the astrological system currently in use, didn't even have a clue that Uranus, Neptune, and Pluto were out there.
6. "Grandfathering" - The argument that Pluto should remain a planet because it has been for seventy years doesn't hold up. The IAU has finally written a definition of what the word "planet" means and Pluto doesn't meet the requirements. If we are just going to "grandfather" it in anyway, then why did we do away with the geocentric, earth centered, model of the solar system? It was the accepted model for far, far, far longer than seventy years. Not to mention that animals and plants are frequently reclassified by biologists and yet no one is screaming about that. "Grandfathering" Pluto in as a planet simply doesn't make sense.
7. Consensus - The fact that millions of people want Pluto to remain a planet is a ludicrous reason for doing such. Science and scientific classifications do not operate by consensus of the public. Consensus of the involved scientists perhaps, but there is no referendum of the world's population to decide if we accept General Relativity or not.
8. Technical Definition - Lastly, this new designation is a technical classification. If you're not an astronomer, by all means continue to list off nine planets. That does not change the fact that text books and other technical writings on the subject should be changed to fit the new definition and its classifications.(less)
Answered No
Let's not insult the real planets by calling Pluto one for nostalgia's sake."The debate came to a head in 2006 with an IAU resolution that created an official definition for the term "planet". According to this resolution, there are three main conditions for an object to be considered a 'planet':
1. The object must be in orbit around the Sun.
2. The object must be massive enough to be a sphere by its own gravitational force. More specifically, its own gravity should pull it into a shape of hydrostatic equilibrium.
3. It must have cleared the neighbourhood around its orbit.
Pluto fails to meet the third condition, since its mass was only 0.07 times that of the mass of the other objects in its orbit (Earth's mass, by contrast, is 1.7 million times the remaining mass in its own orbit). The IAU further resolved that Pluto be classified in the simultaneously created dwarf planet category, and that it act as the prototype for the plutoid category of trans-Neptunian objects, in which it would be separately, but concurrently, classified.""
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
Pluto doesn't cut it. We'd have to start classifying other objects as planets.