Experts' vote could mean demotion for Pluto

Rocky Mountain News ^ | August 12, 2006 | Jim Erickson

[SunkenCiv]

News leaks about the planet definition began to spout late this week, as the authors prepared to present a draft resolution to the IAU's executive committee Sunday in Prague. The IAU is the official arbiter of all issues related to astronomical nomenclature. In a story that aired Thursday, unnamed sources told National Public Radio the proposed definition would include Pluto in a new class of small planets. A source also told the Rocky Mountain News on Thursday that a member of the seven-person definition panel said Pluto will remain a planet. IAU Vice President Bob Williams described the reports as "interesting speculation" but would neither confirm nor deny them... Esposito's solar system would contain eight planets. Pluto, the faint, far-off iceball discovered by U.S. astronomer Clyde Tombaugh in 1930, would not make the cut. Same for the rest of the Kuiper Belt and all the asteroids, rocky bodies that orbit the sun between Mars and Jupiter... If pressed, Esposito said he would be willing to grant Pluto - but no other Kuiper Belt Objects or asteroids - planethood due to "historical error."

[SunkenCiv]

http://www.gps.caltech.edu/~mbrown/whatsaplanet/

"The text of the proposed definition will be released August 18th, and the vote will take place on August 24th. Until then we can only speculate on what the proposed definition might be."

[SunkenCiv]

Rethinking the Planets
Popular Science | January 2006 issue (I believe) | Michael Stroh
Posted on 12/28/2005 5:36:18 PM EST by SunkenCiv
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/1548344/posts

[SunkenCiv]

PLUTO'S A PLANET!!!

We now have 12 planets!

Solar system to welcome three new planets
12.00pm Wednesday August 16, 2006
By Steve Connor
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/section/story.cfm?c_id=5&ObjectID=10396493

[annie laurie]

Well, the Pluto-Charon system has its barycenter outside of both bodies, so it could be argued that the Pluto-Charon system is a double-planet

The article seems to indicate that the IAU is leaning toward this view as well:

"... Charon, once considered a moon of Pluto but now described as its double planet ... "

[Knitting A Conundrum]

Plutons. Spherical bodies. But what are the astrologers going to do NOW when they cast their horoscopes?

[Pyro7480]

Ooh, thanks for the ping! I hope this proposal is approved. I like it!

[annie laurie]

You know, this article seems a bit contradictory ...

First, we have "The nine planets of the solar system are about to be transformed into 12."

Then, "The International Astronomical Union (IAU) is planning to add three new members to the exclusive club of large celestial objects orbiting our Sun."

Followed by: "Astronomers are about to vote on an official proposal to extend the definition of a planet to include at least three more objects that are known to be big enough to warrant planetary status."

The first two snippets seem to indicate that the decision is a 'fait accompli,' but the third indicates that the vote is still to come.

Is this vote a mere formality? Or am I missing something obvious?

[Pyro7480]

We should wait to post that article to the main forum until tomorrow morning, so more people will see it.

[NeoCaveman]

News leaks about the planet definition began to spout late this week,

This is a news leak?

How does it help Al Queda. It's got to somehow, either that or it's just damaging to Bush.

Yup, Republicans are about to lose the Plutonian vote.

[SunkenCiv]

Heh... I just tried to, but the NZ Herald is blocked. Oops. ;') The Google news page had others though, so when I get back home and have a reasonable facsimile of a computer to work with, I'll do it.

Unless... some unsuspecting FReeper should happen to wander into the Google news page, and find something that can be used... no one in particular...

[SunkenCiv]

Plutocrat votes are a given for the Pubbies. ;') Unless one counts Soros... or Warren Buffett... or Bill Gates...

[Pyro7480]

The article explains it. We'll have to see how the vote goes. It could be pretty contentious, particularly since the scientists who found the first Kuiper Belt object after Pluto and Charon think that Pluto and Charon shouldn't be considered to be planets.

The International Astronomical Union, which has been the arbiter of planetary nomenclature since 1919, has received a new definition of a planet from a special committee of seven experts set up two years ago to adjudicate on the issue....

The seven-member definition committee convened in Paris in late June and early July, and its recommendations will now go to the IAU's general assembly which will vote on the resolution as its meeting in Prague this week.

Professor Owen Gingrich, the committee chairman, said the deliberations were long and hard, but in the end a consensus was reached.

"In July we had vigorous discussions of both the scientific and the cultural-historical issues and on the second morning several members admitted that they had not slept well, worrying that we would not be able to reach a consensus," Professor Gingrich said.

"But by the end of a long day, the miracle had happened - we had reached a unanimous agreement."The issue came to a head after it was discovered that UB313 was bigger than Pluto, which was discovered in 1930 and was only called a planet because it was originally thought to be as big as Earth.

[annie laurie]

Yeah, I read the whole article ... it just seemed a bit odd to me.

In the beginning, they kept phrasing it as though the decision had already been made (or at least, that it was certain to be in favor of the new planets).

Perhaps they have some 'inside info,' who knows ;-)

[SunkenCiv]

The committee had to formulate the question to be voted on by the whole body. The possibility exists that the proposal will be voted down, but that's not too likely (hooray!). Most members will just be glad to get this issue settled once and for all.

The reason this is good news for some geeks (uh, like me for example) is that the proposal could have been, "shall the number of planets be reduced to eight, and Pluto and other bodies reclassified as KBOs" -- or something.

There wasn't any logical way to do that, since this was about defining "planet". There could be a body orbiting the Sun that is larger than Mercury, but very far out, or very dark, or in retrograde orbit.

Some say that the residuals in Neptune's motion can be eliminated by dropping the anomalous observations (which it seems to me are something like 100 years old), with one astronomer even claiming that the issue of any remaining planet X is a psychological one.

Some take the view that orbits like that of Sedna indicate a large body kickin' stuff out of the Oort Cloud, or the Kuiper Belt. My wild guess is, the residuals are real, but that Tombaugh's exhaustive search for it didn't find it because it is in retrograde orbit. :')

[SunkenCiv]

Make stuff up, same as now. ;')

[SunkenCiv]

I think we should wait a few years for the probe to reach Pluto before we get used to calling it a double planet. That probe is going to give us the best show in decades, in my humble opinion. Tiny Pluto will be cratered, it is already known to have three moons, and probably has a mini-belt of asteroids of its own, hundreds or thousands of tiny moonlets. All of Pluto's moons are captures IMV; its distance from the Sun means Pluto's sphere of influence is wider, making it easier for capture to occur, despite its small size. :')

[P.O.E.]

So they're saying that Pluto can go to Hades?

[SunkenCiv]

Pluto stays a planet; there will be a sub-class that won't impact its planetary status. Pluto also stays a Disney character.

[Knitting A Conundrum]

Used to do a lot playing around with it when I was younger, and I can tell you there is going to be money made writing news books incorporating these...and all the software to modify...Most astrologers don't make things up out of whole cloth the way you might think; it's self-consistant within a scheme of symbolic reference, based a good bit on the old ptolomeic models and the classical 4 elements of earth, air, fire, and water, and the symbols associated with the mythologies of the names of the planets...and now this just adds a new level to consider...If I was still playing around with it, it would be fun to watch the fireworks...or write some of the articles, but I don't do that any more...I suspect some people are already thinking about what they can do...especially with Ceres being given an upgrade...


I have a perverse mind.

[tortoise]

In my opinion it will always be 9.

Always? I have seen (old) college textbooks that have Ceres, Pallas, Juno, and Vesta listed as planets. The number of planets has fluctuated with time and science. It won't be the first time that planets have been added or removed from the list. Are you saying that if you had been born a little earlier, you would still be asserting that there were only 8 or 11 planets?