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Astronomical debate
Philadelphia Inquirer ^ | 09/22/06 | Susan Snyder

Posted on 09/23/2006 6:38:54 PM PDT by KevinDavis

For Jarmel Hurtt, 14, it was the biggest reversal of fact since finding out there was no Santa Claus.

An equally disillusioned Benjamin Santiago, also 14, said: "It's like 2 plus 2 is 4, and then one day somebody decides to make it 3."

So when it came time recently to choose sides for a debate at their Center City Philadelphia high school - the newly opened Science Leadership Academy - Hurtt and Santiago stood with a majority of their classmates in arguing for Pluto to remain the ninth planet, as they have always known it, and against the scientific community's recent ruling to the contrary.

(Excerpt) Read more at philly.com ...


TOPICS: Astronomy; Miscellaneous
KEYWORDS: space; xplanets

1 posted on 09/23/2006 6:38:54 PM PDT by KevinDavis
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To: RightWhale; Brett66; xrp; gdc314; anymouse; NonZeroSum; jimkress; discostu; The_Victor; ...

2 posted on 09/23/2006 6:39:15 PM PDT by KevinDavis (http://www.cafepress.com/spacefuture)
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To: KevinDavis

There is no Santa Claus?


3 posted on 09/23/2006 6:39:33 PM PDT by mainepatsfan
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To: mainepatsfan

Screw you guys, I'm going home and Pluto's coming with me.


4 posted on 09/23/2006 6:51:55 PM PDT by cripplecreek (If stupidity got us into this mess, then why can't it get us out?)
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To: KevinDavis

I can't say I have an opinion one way or the other. I don't get out of the immediate solar system much.


5 posted on 09/23/2006 6:53:51 PM PDT by 1rudeboy
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To: 1rudeboy; All

This has to be the most borning debate in my lifetime...


6 posted on 09/23/2006 6:55:14 PM PDT by KevinDavis (http://www.cafepress.com/spacefuture)
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To: KevinDavis

It's pretty bad. Someone on a recent "space" thread remarked that he was afraid that Voyager 3(?) was going to puncture the heliosphere. I'm almost completely sure he was joking, but my first reaction was "like worrying about it will make a difference." [chuckle]


7 posted on 09/23/2006 6:59:10 PM PDT by 1rudeboy
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To: KevinDavis
This has to be the most borning debate in my lifetime...

Isn't there a song about that...
"Borning has broken..."
8 posted on 09/23/2006 7:03:23 PM PDT by NonLinear (He's dead, Jim)
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To: 1rudeboy; All

Me, I don't know what the big deal is anyway.. I have more important things to worry about Pluto (Like I was going to visit there in the first place)...


9 posted on 09/23/2006 7:03:36 PM PDT by KevinDavis (http://www.cafepress.com/spacefuture)
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To: 1rudeboy

I know a guy who swears up and down that the space shuttle pokes holes in the atmosphere on every launch. I tried to explain it to him by dropping a rock in the lake and asking him to find the hole be he couldn't grasp the similarities between air and water.

He gets mad because I walk behind him and act like I'm choking from walking in the hole he makes when he walks.


10 posted on 09/23/2006 7:05:28 PM PDT by cripplecreek (If stupidity got us into this mess, then why can't it get us out?)
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To: KevinDavis
Can science just change it's mind? Are the facts the same or has Pluto lost weight (I know mass). What is a hard science if scientist can change something by voting.


Follow the money! How many of these scientist will make money from new textbooks.
11 posted on 09/23/2006 7:05:54 PM PDT by ThomasThomas (I did use spell check!)
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To: KevinDavis
"I am not a planet, dang it! How many times have I got to say it?"

12 posted on 09/23/2006 7:12:00 PM PDT by NonLinear (He's dead, Jim)
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To: ThomasThomas
Follow the money! How many of these scientist will make money from new textbooks.

At least all the public school textbook companies will be drooling.

13 posted on 09/23/2006 7:27:40 PM PDT by metmom (Welfare was never meant to be a career choice.)
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To: ThomasThomas

Actually I think the scientists are more interested in prestige than anything.


14 posted on 09/23/2006 7:29:38 PM PDT by cripplecreek (If stupidity got us into this mess, then why can't it get us out?)
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To: ThomasThomas
Can science just change it's mind? Are the facts the same or has Pluto lost weight (I know mass). What is a hard science if scientist can change something by voting.

Follow the money! How many of these scientist will make money from new textbooks.

The issue is what is the definition of a planet? To date, the Planets have been defined by rooster, other objects orbiting the Sun have been called comets, asteroids or Kuiper Belt objects, or now planetoids, for massive objects orbiting beyond the Kuiper belt, like Zena and Sedna.

Pluto is atypical of other planets. Planets fall into two classes, gas giants of the outer solar system and rocky planets of the inner solar system. Pluto resembles thousands of Kuiper Belt objects more than either class.

Pluto has lost mass, in that the discovery of Charon has established that his mass is much smaller than previously believed.

Ceres, the most massive and first discovered of the main belt asteriods was once called a planet, but as dozens and later thousands of similar objects were discovered she was removed from the Canon.

I suppose the Kuiper belt objects have had the same effect on Pluto as asteriods had on Pluto. There are known

15 posted on 09/23/2006 7:45:46 PM PDT by Lonesome in Massachussets (The hallmark of a crackpot conspiracy theory is that it expands to include countervailing evidence.)
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To: cripplecreek
An anti-American slant probably led to not grandfathering Pluto.

I used to think the orbit alone should have disqualified Pluto, but Hubble's been looking at a "newly"
forming star system with two disks, and the one planet found so far is in the secondary (smaller) disk,
albeit offset by something like only 4 or 6 degrees.

16 posted on 09/23/2006 7:55:31 PM PDT by Calvin Locke
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To: KevinDavis

"the scientific community" didn't rule that Pluto is not a planet. A small group, a fraction of the IAU membership, voted it into a "dwarf planet" limbo, and while some may listen to this, it's strictly a political act, and insult to the United States -- and that's all it was intended to be.


17 posted on 09/24/2006 12:36:07 PM PDT by SunkenCiv (updated my FR profile on Saturday, September 16, 2006. https://secure.freerepublic.com/donate/)
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To: SunkenCiv
Get a grip people. This is not a political hit on America.

The term "planet" has never had a hard definition. It didn't need one until we started finding more and more objects that challenged the loose definition that was in general use at the time.

Because of these relatively recent discoveries, they simply had to define "planet" in one of two ways. One way, we go back to 8 planets, or the other way, we wind up with thousands of "planets" as more and more Kuiper belt objects were found.

"Grandfathering" is nothing more than calling it a planet for emotional/sentimental reasons with no scientific, or just plain logical consistency what so ever.

This is very similar to the "Brown Dwarf v. Gas Giant" issue they're trying to figure out now. They need a better definition to address new discoveries challenging current knowledge.

They made the right call. Calling it a hit on America is stretching things just a bit.

18 posted on 09/25/2006 10:54:23 AM PDT by Jotmo (I Had a Bad Experience With the CIA and Now I'm Gonna Show You My Feminine Side - Swirling Eddies)
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To: Jotmo
Because of these relatively recent discoveries, they simply had to define "planet" in one of two ways. One way, we go back to 8 planets, or the other way, we wind up with thousands of "planets" as more and more Kuiper belt objects were found.
Wrong.
To Pluto -- And Far Beyond "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.

19 posted on 09/25/2006 11:54:07 AM PDT by SunkenCiv (updated my FR profile on Saturday, September 16, 2006. https://secure.freerepublic.com/donate/)
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To: SunkenCiv
Wrong.

About what exactly?

Nothing in that article, or the quote, contradicts anything I wrote.

20 posted on 09/26/2006 3:29:40 PM PDT by Jotmo (I Had a Bad Experience With the CIA and Now I'm Gonna Show You My Feminine Side - Swirling Eddies)
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