Eight planets: Pluto was ousted from the solar system's planetary lineup in August 2006. WENN/Newscom/File
Posted on 11/05/2007 9:02:04 AM PST by SunkenCiv
I understood his travail. When I was a kid, I had a favorite planet. It seemed that all my friends did. Mine, for a reason I can no longer put my finger on, was Venus. I still recall a schoolyard fray in which I faced off against a kid who was ballyhooing the case for Jupiter as the "best" planet. The volume of recriminations rose to the point where a crowd gathered and one of the teachers had to separate us. Who knew that astronomy could stoke such passions? ...The thing is, like that long-ago schoolyard standoff pitting Venus against Jupiter, the astronomy conference in the Czech Republic, where Pluto was stripped of its epaulets, also saw its share of fireworks. (USA Today described the proceedings over Pluto's fate as "stormy.") Apparently Pluto had its vociferous defenders, such as Dr. Alan Stern, principal investigator of the New Horizons space probe mission, scheduled to arrive at Pluto in 2015. His website defiantly continues to call Pluto "the last planet." I transmitted this note of optimism to my son.
(Excerpt) Read more at csmonitor.com ...
Eight planets: Pluto was ousted from the solar system's planetary lineup in August 2006. WENN/Newscom/File
Dr. S. Alan Stern in the F/A-18Pluto -- it takes a kicking and keeps on, uh, orbiting.
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Pluto has a new gig at Disney World. ;^)
Well, it is a world of laughter, a world of tears...
'Hope he dresses warmly...
:’D The tough part will be where to land, since the atmosphere will begin to re-freeze.
Yeah, Alan refuses to call Pluto anything but a planet. He wrote a pretty good article a few years back called “Gravity Rules” where he put forward a reasonable definition of planethood.
I have it on good authority that a guy in charge of giving numbers to asteroids started this whole controversy. He got tired of people spotting Pluto and thinking it was an asteroid, then asking him for a number...
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"To Pluto And Far Beyond" By David H. Levy, Parade, January 15, 2006 -- We don't have a dictionary definition yet that includes all the contingencies. In the wake of the new discovery, however, the International Astronomical Union has set up a group to develop a workable definition of planet. For our part, in consultation with several experienced planetary astronomers, Parade offers this definition: A planet is a body large enough that, when it formed, it condensed under its own gravity to be shaped like a sphere. It orbits a star directly and is not a moon of another planet. |
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"To Pluto And Far Beyond" By David H. Levy, Parade, January 15, 2006 -- We don't have a dictionary definition yet that includes all the contingencies. In the wake of the new discovery, however, the International Astronomical Union has set up a group to develop a workable definition of planet. For our part, in consultation with several experienced planetary astronomers, Parade offers this definition: A planet is a body large enough that, when it formed, it condensed under its own gravity to be shaped like a sphere. It orbits a star directly and is not a moon of another planet. |
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