Free Republic
Browse · Search
News/Activism
Topics · Post Article

To: hershey

Either there is a tenth planet or there are only eight.


27 posted on 02/23/2006 4:54:55 PM PST by arthurus (Better to fight them OVER THERE than over here.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 11 | View Replies ]


To: arthurus; hershey

I think it's more like eight, nine or many planets. There are untold numbers of Kuiper Belt objects. Pluto is just a very close one, that was found early.

Although Pluto more nearly matches the pattern of KB object, one way to define planets is by roster: everything on a certain canonical list is a planet, everything else is something else, asteroid, comet, KB object, what have you.


BTW, I don't think calling Pluto a KB object means he can't be a planet as well, the sets are not necessarily disjoint.

I like to think of Pluto as the St. Christopher of planets. He was a planet when I was a boy reading "Our Sun and the Worlds Around It" and "Lives of the Saints". I'd like him to remain a planet in my days. I thought it was unkind of the Vatican to remove St. Christopher from the Canon merely because their is no historical evidence that he ever lived. Picky, picky.


38 posted on 02/24/2006 2:37:28 AM PST by Lonesome in Massachussets (NYT Headline: 'Protocols of the Learned Elders of CBS: Fake But Accurate, Experts Say.')
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 27 | View Replies ]

Free Republic
Browse · Search
News/Activism
Topics · Post Article


FreeRepublic, LLC, PO BOX 9771, FRESNO, CA 93794
FreeRepublic.com is powered by software copyright 2000-2008 John Robinson