Pluto Demoted

[ffutures]

So... Pluto isn't considered a planet any more, and Ceres, Xena, etc. won't be added to the list of planets.

Seems a bit of a shame, and will probably be about as effective as renaming Brontosaurus as "Apatosaurus" was. It's going to be a LONG time before people stop using the old nomenclature in both cases.

Having said that, I can see the reasons why they've done it - I just wish that they'd left in a "grandfather clause" to keep Pluto as a planet, since it was so much a part of astronomical history.

Comments

[chocolatescifi.livejournal.com]

I find it interesting that the astronomers hellbent on downgrading Pluto's status only started their campaign AFTER the death of Clyde Tombaugh. It seems as though they didn't have the cojones to do it while he was still alive.

I'd like to think ...

[the-magician.livejournal.com]

... that perhaps they wanted him to live his entire life being the last person to discover a planet and just waited until he died (happy) before saying "well, it's not *really* a planet, but, you know, he was such a lovely chap we didn't have the heart to tell him".

Re: I'd like to think ...

[chocolatescifi.livejournal.com]

From where I'm sitting, it still shows a lack of integrity, ethics, and honesty.

Really?

[the-magician.livejournal.com]

I don't see that at all.

If it isn't too much trouble I'd be interested to try to understand why you see it that way.

They could have grandfathered in Pluto, but would that have been scientific integrity, or just shameless pandering to popularism.

2003 UB313 was discovered (I'm guessing) in 2003, and Ceres has been around for ages and ages.

They had a meeting to decide what was a planet and what wasn't ... (e.g. why isn't our Moon a planet? It's big enough I think, it's probably got enough gravity to pull itself into a sphere ... but it isn't the dominant body in its orbit. After a lot of discussion (and this isn't the first time this has been up for discussion) they settled on a definition that leaves Pluto, Ceres *and* 2003 UB313 (and other Kuiper belt objects) out of "The Planets".

Personally it's as good a set of rules as saying "only those that Holst wrote music for" :-)

What do you find dishonest and what do you find unethical? It's a serious question, I'm really curious.

Re: Really?

[chocolatescifi.livejournal.com]

As I said before, it goes back to the fact that this didn't start until after Tombaugh's death. It's sooo much easier to start this campaign after his death than to have enough courage of one's convictions to say to Tombaugh, "No, you didn't discover a planet" while he was still alive.

[daveon.livejournal.com]

I know what you mean, but I am looking forward to seeing Astrologers try and deal with this :)

[parakkum.livejournal.com]

They interviewed one on NPR yesterday. He already had his story in place -- first, astronomers and astrologers have different definitions of planet and, second, he believed that Pluto's orbit is really just a subtle cofactor in things determined by Neptune's orbit, so most Pluto-based predictions are, in truth, Neptune-based.

Seriously.

[chocolatescifi.livejournal.com]

Strangely enough, I think the astrologers are going to be a lot more honest in their treatment of the subject.

[saranjeuhal.livejournal.com]

I understand the importance of creating and staying within strong criteria for the classification of space-based objects, but this whole situation seems to have been completely overblown throughout the world.

Pluto is still a celestial body, and it still travels around the sun. It's still a planet, but is now classified as a dwarf planet (I guess it gets picked last during team games because it's too small to really play with the big boys and nobody really wants him on their team). It'll still be part of history, and in fact might end up being pretty notorious for this exact situation: "The Planet That Wasn't".

All of the conjecture coming out of the media for the past couple of weeks and the constant reporting of the status, conference and points of view make the whole thing worthy of being put in the category of "Most Entertaining Reality Show/Soap Opera". All it needs is some gang violence, someone coming back from the dead, adultery, and impossible plot lines and it will be there. Still it beats the constant fearmongering that the press has been pushing for the past few years.

Earth and Jupiter might not be planets either...

[johnreiher.livejournal.com]

As one poster indicated on NASA Watch, by strict definition, Earth and Jupiter are not planets either as neither one has complete "orbital dominance" of its orbit about the sun.

http://www.nasawatch.com/archives/2006/08/earth_and_jupit.html

So that means Jupiter is a dwarf planet! :-)

[raygungothic.livejournal.com]

According to the BBC, astronomers are accusing a far-out minority of hijacking things and we may get Pluto back yet. I do hope so.