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Pluto status suffers another blow (Pluto Gets "plutoed" again!)
BBC News ^ | 06/15/07 | BBC News

Posted on 06/15/2007 8:04:06 PM PDT by IllumiNaughtyByNature

Pluto has suffered yet another blow to its status. Not only has it been demoted from planet to "dwarf planet", research now shows that it cannot even lay claim to being the biggest of these.

A study has confirmed that the dwarf planet Eris - whose discovery prompted Pluto's relegation from planet to dwarf - outranks it in mass.

snip


TOPICS: Culture/Society; Miscellaneous; News/Current Events
KEYWORDS: astronomy; dwarfsinouterspace; p4; p5; planets; pluto; rodneydangerfield; space; xplanets
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The US team, whose work is published in the journal Science, described their finding as "Pluto's last stand".

Reclassification

The discovery of Eris, formerly known as 2003 UB313, marked the beginning of the end for Pluto as a planet.

Previous measurements from the Hubble Space Telescope confirmed that Eris was larger in diameter than Pluto, leading the International Astronomical Union (IAU) to rule in 2006 that Pluto could no longer be classed as a planet.

ERIS - WORLD OF DISCORD

First seen in 2003 but finally recognised in 2005 Given the designation 2003 UB313 until formal naming Highly elongated orbit around Sun lasting 560 years Currently positioned some 14.5 billion km from Earth Has extremely frigid surface temperature of -250C May have thin atmosphere when closest to Sun Is accompanied by a satellite called Dysnomia

A new category of dwarf planets was adopted, into which Pluto, Eris and another body called Ceres, which is located in the asteroid belt, were placed.

Eris lies some 14.5 billion km from Earth in a region of space known as the Kuiper Belt. It has a highly elongated orbit around the Sun that lasts 560 years.

Snip - more at link

1 posted on 06/15/2007 8:04:09 PM PDT by IllumiNaughtyByNature
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To: K4Harty

Pluto will always be a planet in my book.


2 posted on 06/15/2007 8:06:58 PM PDT by cripplecreek (Greed is NOT a conservative ideal.)
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To: K4Harty

3 posted on 06/15/2007 8:08:13 PM PDT by BipolarBob (Yes I backed over the vampire, but I swear I didn't see it in my rear view mirror.)
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To: cripplecreek

Same here. Mess with Pluto and you mess with all the baby-boomers. Do so at your peril!


4 posted on 06/15/2007 8:08:27 PM PDT by P-40 (Al Qaeda was working in Iraq. They were just undocumented.)
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To: P-40

I’m reasonable. We can include the others too.


5 posted on 06/15/2007 8:09:45 PM PDT by cripplecreek (Greed is NOT a conservative ideal.)
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To: K4Harty

Eris is an illegal immigrant who’s taken up shop to put Pluto out of a job!

RESIST!


6 posted on 06/15/2007 8:13:20 PM PDT by azhenfud (The fool hath said in his heart, There is no God.)
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To: cripplecreek

I never understood why they were so scared of just adding more planets.


7 posted on 06/15/2007 8:13:46 PM PDT by mhx
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To: K4Harty

8 posted on 06/15/2007 8:14:51 PM PDT by SandRat (Duty, Honor, Country. What else needs to be said?)
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To: mhx
"I never understood why they were so scared of just adding more planets."

Are you kidding? More mouths to feed.........sheesh......

9 posted on 06/15/2007 8:16:22 PM PDT by RightOnline
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To: RightOnline

My very elegant mother just sat upon nine....used to be porcupines....maybe now it’s elephants...


10 posted on 06/15/2007 8:20:08 PM PDT by scrabblehack
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To: K4Harty

Oh, thought you were talking about me. Nevermind.

11 posted on 06/15/2007 8:20:27 PM PDT by fieldmarshaldj (~~~Jihad Fever -- Catch It !~~~ (Backup tag: "Live Fred or Die"))
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To: mhx
I never understood why they were so scared of just adding more planets.

Because odds are within a couple decades we'd have 50+ or 100+ planets if you count stuff like Pluto and Eris.

12 posted on 06/15/2007 8:22:21 PM PDT by Strategerist
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To: K4Harty

People actually get paid to argue about this shyt?

Where do I sign up? Easy money, LOL!


13 posted on 06/15/2007 8:26:57 PM PDT by Seruzawa (Attila the Hun... wasn't he a liberal?)
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To: cripplecreek

I found a bottle scuba diving. “Pluto Water - America’s Physic”.

It’s interesting since the bottom of the bottle has a relief of “Pluto”.

The god, not the planet.

And the bottle contained seawater, not Pluto Water, when I retrieved it from it’s natural environment.

Hmmm, I was ahead of the fishing commercial...


14 posted on 06/15/2007 8:28:22 PM PDT by Calvin Locke
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To: azhenfud

Let’s blow Eris up.


15 posted on 06/15/2007 8:37:55 PM PDT by Greg F (<><)
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To: Seruzawa
The wonder world of academia. Where you how the power to talk about things you’ve only read about in books.
16 posted on 06/15/2007 8:42:37 PM PDT by IllumiNaughtyByNature (I buy gas for my SUV with the Carbon Offsets I sell on Ebay!)
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To: cripplecreek

I agree, think of all the science fair projects that will have to be shelved and the awards given back.


17 posted on 06/15/2007 8:43:55 PM PDT by IllumiNaughtyByNature (I buy gas for my SUV with the Carbon Offsets I sell on Ebay!)
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To: K4Harty

Pluto- the Rodney Dangerfield of the Solar System.


18 posted on 06/15/2007 8:53:48 PM PDT by WinOne4TheGipper (Conspiracy theorists are among the most egotistical people, but have the fewest reasons to be such.)
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To: WinOne4TheGipper

Ain’t that the truth.


19 posted on 06/15/2007 9:03:40 PM PDT by IllumiNaughtyByNature (I buy gas for my SUV with the Carbon Offsets I sell on Ebay!)
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To: Strategerist

We already went through this two centuries ago with the discovery of Ceres, closely followed by a “series” of other asteroids. Initially, Ceres was hailed as the ninth planet. Note that in the TV series, “The Ascent of Man”, Jacob Bronowski invokes Ceres’ status as a planet to ridicule Hegel, somewhat unjustly IMHO.

Bronowski states that Ceres’ discovery confounded Hegel’s putative “proof” that there could only be 8 planets. I took the trouble to obtain a copy of Hegel’s thesis and found that he made a more limited claim. He criticized “Bode’s Law” on the basis that it allowed any number of planets, and said that any such law should accommodate only the known planets. Well, it’s much of a muchness.


20 posted on 06/15/2007 9:58:55 PM PDT by dr_lew
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