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To: Willie Green
Sky and Telescope magazine (www.skypub.com) had an interesting article a while ago where they tried to come up with a logical basis for defining a planet that would encompass all the current 9 planets while excluding others. They were unable to do so: criteria such as "massive enough to pull it's own mass into a spherical shape" or "within x distance from the Sun", or a specific chemical/geological composition all either excluded Pluto (and others), or else included other objects not currently considered a planet.

If you want to read more about this object, check here

7 posted on 10/07/2002 2:06:10 PM PDT by RonF
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To: RonF
I thought the definition of a planet was pretty simple. Orbits the sun, is big and round. Did I miss something?
16 posted on 10/07/2002 2:26:39 PM PDT by jpsb
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