Three new planets out of ****ing nowhere!

[Ultra Peanut]

http://www.boston.com/news/science/articles/2006/08/16/nine_no_longer_panel_declares_12_planets/
http://www.gps.caltech.edu/~mbrown/whatsaplanet/howmanplanets.html

Well, actually, Ceres "the asteroid" is a planet once again; Pluto/Charon and Xena are but mere plutons. So 9 + 3.

http://fileanchor.com/53619-r.jpg

[007]

We get to see history changed.

[Spicy McHaggis]

2 Skinnee J's has vehemently argued that Pluto is a planet. Man, I miss seein' those guys in concert.

Pretty interesting stuff, I like it when the scientific community shakes itself up.

[Ultra Peanut]

http://www.badastronomy.com/

So this rule isn’t really arbitrary, it’s just not very satisfying. But imagine the rule we’d need instead: if you have two objects that orbit each other, and one or both are planets by Rules 1 and 2, then the more massive on is a planet, and the other is just a moon. That’s silly too. What if one is Jupiter-sized and the other is Earth-sized?

Which brings me, finally, to my big point. This is all incredibly silly. We’re not arguing science here. We’re arguing semantics. For years people have tried to make a rigid definition of planet, but it simply won’t work. No matter what parameter you include in the list, I can come up with an example that screws the definition up. I’ve shown that already, and I’m just warming up.

The problem here is simple, really: we’re trying to wrap a scientific definition around a culturally-defined word that has no strict definition. Doing this will only lead to trouble. Why? For one thing, it’s divisive and silly. How does a definition help us at all? And how does it make things less confusing than they already are? Charon is a planet? It’s smaller than our own Moon!

A big step in understanding a new object is being able to categorize it. Is it icy, or rocky? Is the orbit circular, elliptical, far from the Sun, nearby, tilted? This type of information leads to insight on how the object formed, what it’s doing, and how it behaves. This is all important, and so it is a good idea to try to categorize objects. But definitions are like little boxes, containers in which ideas sit. But sometimes they’re more like prison cells. They frame our minds, make us see things too rigidly. Thinking of Pluto as a planet might make us miss some important characteristic because we’re too narrow in our thinking. I’ve seen it happen before, even with me. It’s too easy to be rigid with a definition in your hand.

However, in a sense this doesn’t matter. What’s in a name? Scientists will probably still of Pluto as they always have– an ice ball at the edge of the main solar system. The public will still think of it as a planet, so that won’t change. And, well, there is something cool about this new set of rules. Maybe, just maybe, in a few years we’ll have a solar system with hundreds or even thousands of planets, instead of just the 9 — nuts, I mean 12 — that we have now.

[keg in kc]

Cool pic of Pluto and Charon comparison to the US:

[007]

Well, based on that pic, a trip around the world just got easier.

[Ultra Peanut]

Cool pic of Pluto and Charon comparison to the US:Lest we start feeling high and mighty, however:

[007]

We are so insignificant.

[mikey23545]

Cool pic of Pluto and Charon comparison to the US:

I never realized they were so smooth and shiny.

[Ultra Peanut]

More fun with celestial size comparisons:

http://www.rense.com/general72/size.htm

:deevee:

[Bootlegged]

Damnit Bush! :cuss:

[Ultra Peanut]

Damnit Bush! :cuss:
okay then

[KCFalcon59]

There goes the neighborhood!

[Amnorix]

More fun with celestial size comparisons:

http://www.rense.com/general72/size.htm

:deevee:

Holy crap. That is awesome. Rep.

[Kylo Ren]

Scientists must show SOME result for all of the years of federal funding. I'm sure they'll request 4X more money next year. "But we 'discovered' new planets!!"

[jiveturkey]

Lest we start feeling high and mighty, however:
Where in the hell is Aldebaran? That's a big sun bitch.

[Bootlegged]

okay then

Twas a joke. Aldebarans would be a cool team name. Maybe the new LA franchise could go with it. LA Aldebarans. Yes.

[Lzen]

More fun with celestial size comparisons:

http://www.rense.com/general72/size.htm

:deevee:

Those are pretty cool comparisons. I noticed they had Rigel at the bottom. Isn't that the "paradise" planet in Star Trek: The Next Generation?

[JBucc]

Cool. More useless rocks floating in space a bazillion miles away.

[Amnorix]

Those are pretty cool comparisons. I noticed they had Rigel at the bottom. Isn't that the "paradise" planet in Star Trek: The Next Generation?

Think so. Rigel IV or somesuch.

Antares was a ship.

Betelgeuse wasn't in Star Trek, but was where Ford Prefect was from The Hitchhiker's Guide.

[Amnorix]

Where in the hell is Aldebaran? That's a big sun bitch.


Distances are measured in astronomical terms by the distance that light travels in a given period of time. So one light second is the a measure of distance, in this case equal to 300,000 kilometers, or seven trips around the earth.

The distance from the Earth to the sun is 8 light minutes, or about 93 million miles.

The next nearest star is Alpha Centauri, which is 4.3 light YEARS away from the sun.

http://www.hartrao.ac.za/other/howfar/howfar.html

Aldebaran is 67 light years away. Betelgeuse is 333 Light years away. So you're talking about distances that blow the mind -- trillions of trillions of miles or whatever.

http://www.rca-omsi.org/beginners/howfar.htm

[Eleazar]

2 Skinnee J's has vehemently argued that Pluto is a planet. Man, I miss seein' those guys in concert.


Arghhh... worst band ever...

[morphius]

Cool, they went with my definition! Probably the most simple and clean definition. The idea of "double planets" or binary planets don't bother me as we already have that with stars, nothing too unexpected there.

Though me not knowing that Ceres was round bothers me.

[boogblaster]

I found 3 plants once...best I ever toked....BOOG HIGH.....

[jiveturkey]

Though me not knowing that Ceres was round bothers me.We need to send a landing party and take a bunch of their shit.

[morphius]

We need to send a landing party and take a bunch of their shit.
I think we should just take flags and claim it, there is no good defense for flags. Well, unless they already have flags, but I doubt it.

[jiveturkey]

I think we should just take flags and claim it, there is no good defense for flags. Well, unless they already have flags, but I doubt it.
I hope that they have wind or we might have a bunch of mentally retarded people telling us that we never went there.

[morphius]

I hope that they have wind or we might have a bunch of mentally retarded people telling us that we never went there.
having met some of these nut jobs in person, I have to say that it is best we don't even attempt to cater to their conspiracy of the moment theory.

[Rain Man]

More fun with celestial size comparisons:

http://www.rense.com/general72/size.htm

:deevee:

That is way cool. If not for my healthy ego and lots of rep points, that would make me feel quite insignficant.

[Ultra Peanut]

That is way cool. If not for my healthy ego and lots of rep points, that would make me feel quite insignficant.You, and you alone, are bigger and brighter than all of the stars in the sky.

[Rooster]

More fun with celestial size comparisons:

http://www.rense.com/general72/size.htm

:deevee:

:clap: Great find... :clap:

[Rooster]

Where does Chiefs Planet go? Please don't say next to Uranus. :p

[Rain Man]

You, and you alone, are bigger and brighter than all of the stars in the sky.

Gosh, thanks. The sun, maybe, but some of those other stars are really big.

[dollar1]

Thanks, Ultra Peanut.

I printed the pic's to frame and put on the kids wall :clap:

~Crawling Back Under My Rock~

[Lzen]

Where does Chiefs Planet go? Please don't say next to Uranus. :p

Did you know there are rings around Uranus?




Seriously.
http://www.space.com/images/h_uranus_rings_02.jpg

[ct]

More fun with celestial size comparisons:

http://www.rense.com/general72/size.htm



Holy crap. That is awesome. Rep.

Ditto!

[Halfcan]

Great thread-I showed my daughter-she is very interested in that stuff. Wow 12 Planets!!

[Hog's Gone Fishin]

According to the picture they have been there all along. They were just hiding behind Uranus!

[Rooster]

Did you know there are rings around Uranus?
http://www.solarvoyager.com/images/art/Uranus%20Rings%20by%20David%20A%20Hardy.jpg

That would explain the burning and itching. :hmmm:

[whoman69]

Leave it to a bunch of eggheads put together in a room to come up with a decision that doesn't have a bit of common sense. Ceres is in the middle of an asteroid belt and is not even half as large as Pluto. A rogue moon would be a better description. Its a planet because its mostly round?
Doesn't Cheron revolve around Pluto? How could it ever be considered a moon if it doesn't.
The only one that makes sense here is Xena, which is still officially called 2003 UB313. That too opens up room for many more to be added, as many as 43 planets. None of those are even as large as what was previously the smallest planet, Pluto. Only five of those 43 objects are larger than 950 km wide Ceres.
There is good news to all this. This is only a recommendation so there are not yet officially 12 planets yet. The proposal has to be voted on by the IAU. There could be even more problems. They could also go with the definition that anything that has a large enough gravity to cause itself to be round is a planet. We would be back to 53 planets then and most likely more in the future as they become discovered. After all, 2003 UB313, which we call Xena for the time being is only 3 years removed from being discovered. It was only recently that is shape and size were more precisely discovered. It was even recently discovered that it has a moon.

[Vegas_Dave]

So I thought I would tell my wife about this. Here is the transcript of the conversation:

Dave: "Hey Honey, how many planets are in the Solar System?"

Wife: "I dont know, 200?"

Dave: "Are you freaking kidding me?"

Wife: "No, I honestly dont know"

Dave: "They teach this to kids in freaking elementary school hun"

Wife: "OK, 50?"

Thats when I ended the conversation.

Damn is a good thing shes hot.

[Rausch]

You go by the "enough gravity to be round" idea and you have about 30 moons that are now planets.

Stupid idea...

[Herzig]

?
Doesn't Cheron revolve around Pluto? How could it ever be considered a moon if it doesn't.


Let me educate you(since I teach science). Actually, Pluto and Charon revolve around each other from what I understand...It probaby is what affects their very unusual orbit around the Sun too. A lot of people think both of them were once moons of Neptune...

This animation should help you understand.

http://www.amherst.edu/~gsgreenstein/progs/animations/pluto_charon/

[morphius]

You go by the "enough gravity to be round" idea and you have about 30 moons that are now planets.

Stupid idea...
enough to be round, but the orbit is just as important, so most previous moons are still moons because they orbit a planet.

The sub catagories makes a lot more sense, as really, how significant is mercury as a planet compared to pluto? How significant would Earth be without life compared to a Jupiter? Plus we already pretty much defined planets this way, Gas Giants, Rocky, Icy...

[Imon Yourside]

Think so. Rigel IV or somesuch.

Antares was a ship.

Betelgeuse wasn't in Star Trek, but was where Ford Prefect was from The Hitchhiker's Guide.

Rigel, Antares and Betelgeuse were also in the game Star Control 2, along with several hundred other system names. I'm wondering if they were somewhat correct on placement of the systems, maybe they had a vision of a starmap that showed the way.

[ChiefaRoo]

Leave it to a bunch of eggheads put together in a room to come up with a decision that doesn't have a bit of common sense. Ceres is in the middle of an asteroid belt and is not even half as large as Pluto. A rogue moon would be a better description. Its a planet because its mostly round?
Doesn't Cheron revolve around Pluto? How could it ever be considered a moon if it doesn't.
The only one that makes sense here is Xena, which is still officially called 2003 UB313. That too opens up room for many more to be added, as many as 43 planets. None of those are even as large as what was previously the smallest planet, Pluto. Only five of those 43 objects are larger than 950 km wide Ceres.
There is good news to all this. This is only a recommendation so there are not yet officially 12 planets yet. The proposal has to be voted on by the IAU. There could be even more problems. They could also go with the definition that anything that has a large enough gravity to cause itself to be round is a planet. We would be back to 53 planets then and most likely more in the future as they become discovered. After all, 2003 UB313, which we call Xena for the time being is only 3 years removed from being discovered. It was only recently that is shape and size were more precisely discovered. It was even recently discovered that it has a moon.


According to the articles I read today they decided to use several definitions - Gravity (which makes the planet more or less round) and the fact that that the body circles our sun not another planet. Then they broke the planets down into smaller and larger catagories. Seems to make sense to me. I mean, they did have some of the biggest Astronomer types debating this. It's probably wrong anyway as we haven't been out that far yet to really know everything that is going on in the outer reaches of the solar system. Remember, the universe is not only stranger and more exotic than we are imagining but it's stranger and more exotic than we can imagine. Truly a magnificent creation.

[morphius]

According to the articles I read today they decided to use several definitions - Gravity (which makes the planet more or less round) and the fact that that the body circles our sun not another planet. Then they broke the planets down into smaller and larger catagories. Seems to make sense to me. I mean, they did have some of the biggest Astronomer types debating this. It's probably wrong anyway as we haven't been out that far yet to really know everything that is going on in the outer reaches of the solar system. Remember, the universe is not only stranger and more exotic than we are imagining but it's stranger and more exotic than we can imagine. Truly a magnificent creation.
That is exactly why I like the definition. It is pretty clear, IMO. It is a near impossible task to go any other route, because there are so many different things that can happen in the lifeespan of a solar system. It is possible that some moons could have formed as planets and been caught up in another planets gravity, they already believe that a Mars sized object hit the early Earth to form the moon. Obviously there is some pretty chaotic stuff going on if there are mars shaped objects forming and either being tossed out of their orbit or forming in an odd orbit.

Heck, I believe that the definition of being a moon should also be the same, setting the limit to big enough to have the gravity capable of being round in shape.

It also doesn't matter about the number of planets, as people can easily be asked to learn the gas giants and inner rocky planet names. Heck, primate is a pretty generic name, and we will never be asked to name all of them even though it is sort of an important group to us.