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View Full Version : nine... eleven... eight... Why can't the just make up their minds?

Darmago
08-24-2006, 4:28 PM
A while ago, a few new planets were discovered... the most known being UB313 or "Xena" Which brings us the questions of how many planets do we REALLY have orbiting our dear sol. The answer to that, decided by thousands of astronomers in Prauge, is eight. Pluto, and his fellow large rocks in the kupier belt, has been demoted to that of a dwarf planet. How long before the education system catches on? Probably never.

Read the article for yourself (http://www.freep.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20060824/NEWS99/60824008/1009/NEWS07)
mcflurry_1982
08-24-2006, 5:37 PM
there is also talk of redifining the word planet. with the new definition several asteroids could be counted as planets.
TinyDancer
08-24-2006, 6:23 PM
They've taught everyone that there are 9 planets in the solar system for so long..does this mean that my space placemat is worth a lot of money on eBay now?
Darmago
08-24-2006, 6:30 PM
there is also talk of redifining the word planet. with the new definition several asteroids could be counted as planets.

not anymore... those would only count as dwarf planets. If its in an asteroid belt, it cannot be called a planet... which is one of the main reasons why UB313 was labeled a dwarf planet.
Protosschick99
08-24-2006, 8:54 PM
Yeah so far they have Ceres, UB313, and then Pluto is no longer considered a planet and Charon is a Satellite.....Poor Pluto!! I will still consider it a planet in my book :D
ZeroDarkStar
08-24-2006, 8:55 PM
personally i think Charon has the most badass name and is thus still a planet.
Schwitzer
08-25-2006, 1:02 AM
Wasn't it just two weeks ago that I heard a news report that they were trying to officially recognise three more planets as being part of the solar system? :/
mcflurry_1982
08-25-2006, 1:53 AM
Wasn't it just two weeks ago that I heard a news report that they were trying to officially recognise three more planets as being part of the solar system? :/
thats been off and on for about 10 years now
hammocksleeper
08-25-2006, 2:11 AM
here's my thoughts on this matter

http://www.scalzi.com/whatever/004405.html
Jeff
08-25-2006, 2:34 AM
They couldn't make up their minds because they were still debating it. The IAU conference was this past week and there were several proposals but it looks like 8 planets is the official word now. The big debate happened this year because there have been several discoveries of Pluto-like objects in recent years which could have been considered planets, since Pluto was. (2003 UB313 is actually larger than Pluto.) There was pressure to come up with a more exact definition of a planet. It was either exclude Pluto, or include those others as well. They ultimately decided to keep the term planet more exclusive and say (basically) that Pluto isn't a planet because it crosses orbits with Neptune. It sounds logical to me.

http://www.cnn.com/2006/TECH/space/08/24/pluto.ap/index.html
wa123
08-25-2006, 2:41 AM
They can’t make up the mind for whether there are living things in Mars, what else can you expect when it comes to the solar system.
Leosam096
08-25-2006, 6:43 AM
great... now we have dwarf planets.
it won't be long now until we discover new dwarf planets.
Darmago
08-25-2006, 6:53 AM
great... now we have dwarf planets.
it won't be long now until we discover new dwarf planets.

we already did... we had UB313 and several others sitting out in the kupier belt
Leosam096
08-25-2006, 7:56 AM
well, so i guess they would really go permanent with this.
now knowledge during my elementary days seem obsolete.
TheBB
08-25-2006, 9:45 AM
They can’t make up the mind for whether there are living things in Mars

Uh, well that's different, and has nothing to do with making up our minds. Whether Pluto is a planet or not is purely a matter of definitions, whereas life on Mars... well, we can't define that on or off in a whim.
SHISHKABOB
08-25-2006, 12:48 PM
Blah, I don't really care what they say about Pluto. He's always gonna be a planet in my book. I am not going to make up another pnemonic device thingy without the P.
Schwitzer
08-25-2006, 3:00 PM
Blah, I don't really care what they say about Pluto. He's always gonna be a planet in my book. I am not going to make up another pnemonic device thingy without the P.
Then you're, officially, going to be wrong.
SHISHKABOB
08-25-2006, 5:52 PM
Well officially, I don't care. We probably aren't ever going to get past Mars in my life time unless we get another spurt of technological advances and decide to colonize the solar system really fast.
ZeroDarkStar
08-25-2006, 6:53 PM
Well officially, I don't care. We probably aren't ever going to get past Mars in my life time unless we get another spurt of technological advances and decide to colonize the solar system really fast.

um in 1940 nobody even thought it was possible to get to the moon. 30 years later they did it. Now we have an International Space Station where people LIVE in space. every year the technology avaliable doubles. I honestly think we will have a base on Mars within 50 years. It's not a far stretch to say we'll be sending manned missions into the asteriod belt in less than 100 years.
SHISHKABOB
08-25-2006, 7:06 PM
Well when I said get past Mars I meant like having it fully colonized with many people living there. Of course we will be getting to Jupiter and the Asteroid belt in the next 100 years or so but I don't think that we will have large colonies there with civilians and such living full time. But you never know.
Skullflower
08-25-2006, 7:13 PM
The outer planets are gas, thus we cant colonize them and hasnt there been talk of a manned mission to mars in 10 years or so? Also hasnt there been speculation of water on Io or one of Saturns moons?
kongurous
08-25-2006, 7:16 PM
The outer planets are gas, thus we cant colonize them

They don't have a stable surface as far as we know. Theoretically still able to colonize them, assuming we know when to move and such. But this thread isn't about colonizing other planets.
ZeroDarkStar
08-25-2006, 7:43 PM
They don't have a stable surface as far as we know. Still able to colonize them, assuming we know when to move and such. But this thread isn't about colonizing other planets.



it's possible to land on them, but the "surface" is an unkown liquid and the immense pressure from the atmosphere would crush any craft foolish enough to venture in. It'd also be extremely hard to break away from the planet because the escape velocity is pretty high.
Darmago
08-25-2006, 8:27 PM
why build colonies ON jupiter when you can build them on its moons, or just put an orbiting colony around it. I think that the first major space event (costing many trillions of dollars and well over 100 years of work) is to terraform mars. the only problem with that being how cold it is and how thin the atmosphere is. the best way to fix this is to vaporize large chunks of frozen solid water and other things, presumably from the asteroid belt, and use the gasses to create an artificial green house effect... The cost and time would be enormous, but when it is completed, it is an entire new world in which man kind can spill over onto. Plus its the only planet in our solar system that would be relativly easy to terraform.
The_Maker
08-25-2006, 10:23 PM
Great, 1 planet demoted, 3 up in the air for speculation, and now we have "dwarf" planets?

What's next?

Oompa Loompa class planets?
Or how about a MiniMe class of planets? ;)
Schwitzer
08-26-2006, 1:17 AM
http://www.warboards.org/attachment.php?attachmentid=4876&stc=1&d=1156569428
Diploaddict
08-26-2006, 3:08 PM
They finally decided to make rules for what makes a planet, well a planet. This should have been done in the 1930s (of course, science does change with new data).

Thanks for the picture Schwitzer!
Skullflower
08-26-2006, 3:51 PM
Wasnt Ceres Mars' moon?
JarquaFelmu
08-26-2006, 5:08 PM
The rules for planethood state that a planetoid object must have:

1) Enough mass and therefore enough gravity to pull it's mass into a spherical formation. Pluto passes this rule.

The thing that the dwarf planets don't follow is the second rule.

2) For an object to have Planethood. It must clear it's orbit. Which means it must be the dominate object in it's orbit. And because Pluto crosses Neptune's orbit, it fails at this rule.

So therefore pluto cannot be a planet and every single teacher is wrong since a few days ago:). My thats going to be alot of reprinting of textbooks, seeing as how every single one is wrong:).
LinkTheGameFreak
08-27-2006, 1:00 PM
it's the same kind of situation that happened a few years back when another lake was made a great lake for 10 days then stripped of it's status - I believe there are reasons why astronomers who discovered the planets called them.. durrrr... PLANETS

I'll agree to add more but taking away one's status after 100 years because they have changed the definition... I think those people are just jealous of Pluto ;)
JarquaFelmu
08-27-2006, 1:14 PM
haha:), jealous of pluto, that made me laugh:).
Diploaddict
08-27-2006, 1:30 PM
For all you those still in grades K-5... ;)

Pluto's demotion not a cause for classroom panic (http://www.cnn.com/2006/EDUCATION/08/25/pluto.reaction/index.html)
Darmago
08-27-2006, 7:59 PM
http://up.kupatrix.org/f/28/1156721223814.jpg
kongurous
08-27-2006, 8:32 PM
Pluto: RIP 1930-2006
singo
08-29-2006, 3:15 PM
Pluto: RIP 1930-2006

Yes, but what are you going to put in its obituary?....

Althogh it is nice that they have finally got a definition, even if it is wierd.


I still maintain Neptune (Or was it Uranus? one of them anyway) should have been called "George", But the French would not have a planet named after a British king. Still, a King of England is ranked as high as a pantheon of gods.....the way it should be :D