Which set of goofballs decided Pluto wasn’t a planet?
Because Pluto is just one of a handful of objects in the same neighborhood. To call it a planet would add at LEAST half a dozen new ‘planets’.
It was done at the end of the conference and most scientists had already left. I believe ( just my opinion), that this was done to punish the U.S. Since an American had discovered it; for the Iraq war!
It certainly looks like a planet. The “goofballs” evidently were trying to get everyone thinking it was shaped like a potato and not much larger.
Which set of goofballs decided Pluto wasn’t a planet?
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a requirement to be a planet is that it orbits the sun. Pluto was discovered in 1930. It is estimated that it takes 248 years for pluto to orbit the sun. We will not have been able to observe that for another 163 years.
Who’s the goofball?
Why Pluto is not considered a planet:
http://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-33462184
Arguments that Pluto is a planet:
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/3298118/posts
http://www.space.com/29571-why-pluto-is-a-planet-and-eris-is-too.html
My thoughts are reflected in the excerpt of the above FR post: "Some planetary astronomers would argue that were the Earth placed in the Kuiper Belt, it would not be able to clear its neighborhood and thus would not be considered, by the IAU definition, a planet; apparently location matters. Here a planet, there not a planet..."
IMHO, the current IAU definition of a planet is a poor one.