Oh good greif, my side hurts from laughing!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

This is high comedy at it's finest! A group of scientists quibbling over semantics that have no scientific application!! This makes even less sense than arguing over the dividing line between "hill" and "mountain". I think it's hilarious that they seem hell-bent on avoiding having to add any planets, and I think it would be highly amusing to find out why (something they seem determined to avoid mentioning!)

 

And they are having SECRET MEETINGS over this oh-so-vital issue! BUAHAHAHAAH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

My prediction: no matter what they decide, they will be bickering about it again within three years, and less if Pluto is "demoted". I was at the Lowel observatory in Flagstaff last week, and one of the techs mentioned that if Pluto (which was discovered there) is "demoted", they plan on orchestrating a letter-writing campaign by schoolchildren to get it overturned! :wacko:

The crucial change in "draft c" is that a planet must be the dominant body in its orbital zone, clearing out any little neighbours. Pluto does not qualify because its orbit crosses that of the vastly larger Neptune.

 

This arguement makes the most sense to me.

 

You're right of course. It has become a comedy of semantics.

 

I think a lot of these guys WANT to write the new books.

The crucial change in "draft c" is that a planet must be the dominant body in its orbital zone, clearing out any little neighbours. Pluto does not qualify because its orbit crosses that of the vastly larger Neptune.

 

This arguement makes the most sense to me.

 

You're right of course. It has become a comedy of semantics.

 

I think a lot of these guys WANT to write the new books.

 

Hi James! That's a scary new avatar that you have!

 

I can see a point to the draft c proposal, but it has a serious flaw: it's only being proposed because it fits their goals (which, by definition, is bad science). It makes no sense in another regard: there is no reason at all that even gas-giant size planets cannot cross orbits. Also, Pluto doesn't actually cross Neptune's orbit: Pluto orbits out of the plane of the ecliptic, and the orbits never actually intersect, so don't technically cross (I'm rather shocked at that little oversight in that draft) in spite of Pluto having a perihelion that is closer to the sun than Neptune's. An earth-sized or larger planet could just as easily be in Pluto's orbit, which rather negates using that as a pretext for defining a planet.

 

To me, the simple solution is to set an arbitrary mass (not diameter) limit, but at least acknowledge the fact that it is arbitrary.

 

James, I want to thank you for posting your science articles in general, but this one in particular, and for a very different reason: I was unaware of the secret meetings! I've been sitting here laughing every time I think of that!

I think we should just go back to using the original Ptolemaic planets: Sun, moon, Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter, and Saturn. Which, as we all know, orbit the Earth. Wasn't life a lot simpler then?

 

I mean, if God meant us to use telescopes, He'd have made us with them sticking out of our eyes, right? And wasn't Copernicus a heretic?

 

 

Kitty

I'm pissed

I really like Pluto

They better keep my favorite planet around!

 

not like its going anywhere

and by around, I mean really really really really far away

Kitty-

 

All the early scientests were heretics. The church decreed that all the science that was necessary had been revealed by Plato. Anyone that questioned Plato science or better yet discovered something that refuted it was subject to being branded a heretic and executed. It's a miricle that humans ever made it out of feudalism.

 

 

Red Light-

 

Welcome to the Beast's Lair. It's not all that scary- just keep a few Scooby snacks in your pocket to distract the Beast.

 

Don't worry about Pluto- I think it's all hype to sell a bunch of new textbooks. There will probably be more rather than fewer planets when the dust settles.

 

My favorite planet is Jupiter. It's an interesting planet from a science standpoint being a brown dwarf and you can see it rather well with binoculars. A glimpse of Pluto takes either the Hubble or Long exposure CCD images on a telescope 20 inches or bigger.

 

 

JS

Well, now they've done it. The headline at yahoo:"Dinky Pluto loses its status as planet"

 

"Dinky Pluto"?

 

Wasn't Pluto the god of the underworld? I don't think I'd want to be in those scientists' shoes right about now.

 

 

Kitty

This took me by surprise. I thought that they would go with the definition that made 12 "bodies" major planets.

 

I understand why they went the other way. There may well be dozens of Kuiper Belt objects in the same general size class as Pluto. I think the dominate body in an orbital zone was the tipping point.

 

OH well... I sincerely doubt that this is the last we have heard about this issue.

 

 

JS

All righty, here we go ...

 

Sign the petition for immediate reversal of decision to demote Pluto to "dwarf planet":

 

http://pleasesavepluto.org/

 

 

 

Kitty

Where is the forget that punk-bitch Pluto petetion?

Hell hath no fury like a planet scorned.

 

Seriously ... with everything the world is facing right now -- global warming, for example -- this is what our (presumably) world-class scientists believe needs their most urgent attention? :wacko:

... I think the dominate body in an orbital zone was the tipping point. ...

Yep, the idea is that a "planet" is formed largely from material accreted from its current neighborhood. Makes sense to me. To the scornful members of this discussion, I would like to point out the progress the world has made since Galileo's time. No heads are set to role over this, not literally. About the USA, I'm not sure. I heard on PBS recently that the fraction of US citizens that profess to believe in the theory of evolution has decreased from 42% to 35% in the last 40 years. My own hope is that this is not really increasing ignorance, but rather it's increasing peer pressure caused by the periodic rise of the evangelicals within our protestant communities. In any case, however, it's well that the astronomers met in Prague rather than Tulsa.