Thread: More reasons Pluto should stay demoted

As you all know, Pluto has been demoted to a dwarf planet back in 2006. This of course caused some tension between people who still believed that Pluto should be considered the 9th planet. Well, as it turns out, a dwarf planet called Eris was just recently discovered to be even bigger than Pluto. Eris has an orbit that takes 560 years to complete and is about 97 AU from the sun. Like Pluto, it also has a highly elliptical orbit sometimes coming as close as 38 AU.

Here is the full details:

http://www.astronomy.com/asy/default.aspx?c=a&id=5673


What this does is that it supports the astronomical community in its decision about demoting Pluto and that Pluto may indeed be just an object of the Kuiper Belt. What are your thoughts on this?

it just confirms the reasons why pluto was demoted in the first place : who knows how many borderline objects still await discovery in the kuiper belt, and each of them would then see the repeat of the same old argument - is it or isn't it ?

i think the decision was a wise one

Originally Posted by Corona

What this does is that it supports the astronomical community in its decision about demoting Pluto and that Pluto may indeed be just an object of the Kuiper Belt. What are your thoughts on this?

It was a tiny subset of the astronomical community that made the decision.

My view: if it's big enough to be roughly spherical its a planet.

Originally Posted by Ophiolite

Originally Posted by Corona

What this does is that it supports the astronomical community in its decision about demoting Pluto and that Pluto may indeed be just an object of the Kuiper Belt. What are your thoughts on this?

It was a tiny subset of the astronomical community that made the decision.

My view: if it's big enough to be roughly spherical its a planet.

My veiw too. Why complicate the matter, the system worked just fine before

Can someone tell me if Pluto has been degraded, I know it was agreed that it wasn't a planet but I thought they wouldn't downgrade it incase it offended someone.

It is now classified as a dwarf planet.

Since its discoverer, Clyde Tombaugh, died a few years ago there was no one who was likely to take major offence.

There is a very extensive discussion of the evolution of this decision here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2006_re...tion_of_planet

What if aliens live on some type of asteroid come dwarf planet beyond pluto colony and they are arguing the same point, like is Pluto really on of their dwarf planets or too butch in trying to be one of "Planets", what with being the guard dog of the underworld and all.

You know my point: if there are planets and big pieces of debris floating in space, to average out those two zones, what really is Pluto?

Originally Posted by streamSystems

You know my point: if there are planets and big pieces of debris floating in space, to average out those two zones, what really is Pluto?

Pluto is like a whore. It will be whatever you want it to be.
Classification systems are artificial. Therefore we will often encounter ambiguities, paradoxes, and conflicts when attempting to segregate what may be a continuous spectrum of characteristics.

Pluto "is" the guard dog of the underworld: of course it is treated like a something we wouldn't associate the greater celestial bodies to.

I wonder though, are "we" the underworld of the outside Universe, or is the outside Universe the underworld of us?

"Why" did they name it Pluto?

Why not "celestia", neice of Neptune who was always going out too far, eroding away with all her bad habits?

Originally Posted by streamSystems

"Why" did they name it Pluto?

Early suggestions of the name of the new planet were: Atlas, Zymal, Artemis, Perseus, Vulcan, Tantalus, Idana, Cronus. The New York Times suggested Minerva, reporters suggested Osiris, Bacchus, Apollo, Erebus. Lowell's widow suggested Zeus, but later changed her mind to Constance. Many people suggested the planet be named Lowell. The staff of the Flagstaff observatory, where Pluto was discovered, suggested Cronus, Minerva, and Pluto. A few months later the planet was officially named Pluto. The name Pluto was originally suggested by Venetia Burney, an 11-year-old schoolgirl in Oxford, England.
Source:http://www.seds.org/billa/tnp/hypo.html#plutonames

Pluto was the god of the underworld and as such spent a lot of time in the dark, just like the planet. Plus, PL reminds us of Percival Lowell.

It is interesting how those who find new comets and other space-junk name that space-junk after themselves, well, the title is given to them.

What if, because of Pluto being dethrowned as a planet and all, Venetia Burney, an 11-year-old schoolgirl in Oxford, England, actually is now transformed, in hell, to Pluto....thereby creating a butterfly effect on all would-be school girls who claim to be of astral significance?

Did they ever think of the poor girl, you know, when calling Pluto a big wandering piece of space-rock?

What if the dethrowning of Pluto has lead to some type of cosmological syndrome having otherwise well-brought up school girls behave like dogs from hell?

What if certain well-known "stars" are under some type of cosmological "spell", because indeed we have been conditioned over the years, as evident even with the zodiac, to be conditioned by the celestial objects above and how we regard them.

What if we were to conduct a scientific experiment, change Pluto back to being a planet, not named after the namer, and ideally witness a new theme of girls otherwise behaving badly......like Hollywood's starlets all of a sudden dried up.......off the booze and coke.

Originally Posted by streamSystems

What if, because of Pluto being dethrowned as a planet and all, Venetia Burney, an 11-year-old schoolgirl in Oxford, England, actually is now transformed, in hell, to Pluto....thereby creating a butterfly effect on all would-be school girls who claim to be of astral significance?

Did they ever think of the poor girl, you know, when calling Pluto a big wandering piece of space-rock?

She is still alive (88 years old) and doesn't seem especially fussed.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/4596246.stm

She does have an asteroid named after her, as well as one of the scientific instruments on the New horizons spacecraft en route to Pluto.
It was her great uncle who suggested the names Phobos and Deimos for the satellites of Mars.

I don't think anything in the Kyper belt should be considered a planet.

Fair enough. No planets in the Kyper belt. How about the Edgeworth-Kuiper Belt?
What if something turns up there the size of Mars? Would you still exclude it from planethood?

Originally Posted by Ophiolite

Fair enough. No planets in the Kyper belt. How about the Edgeworth-Kuiper Belt?
What if something turns up there the size of Mars? Would you still exclude it from planethood?

Ok so I spelled it wrong. Sigh. I would change my mind given new convincing evidence.

[quote="scpg02"]

Originally Posted by Ophiolite

Ok so I spelled it wrong. Sigh. I would change my mind given new convincing evidence.

I was more making th epoint that the correct name for the Belt is the Edgeworth -Kuiper Belt, since Edgeworth has precedence in proposing its existing. (In a similar way we should refer to the Opik-Oort Cloud.)

So how big would the planet have to be for you to accept it as a planet? Or would it require to have other features - such as orbital character - before you would accept it as such?

So how big would the planet have to be for you to accept it as a planet? Or would it require to have other features - such as orbital character - before you would accept it as such?

Oh I'll leave that to the brains who actually work in the field. As a spectator I reserve the right to agree or disagree with the call.

apart from being in a stable, more or less circular (as opposed to a highly elliptical) orbit around the sun, i'd say the size cut-off point lies somewhere between Mercury and Ceres

imo Pluto fails more for its orbit rather than its size

well with the whole pluto thing, (http://www.thescienceforum.com/More-...oted-6981t.php) What do you guys think would be a good definition of a planet? Based on different deffinitions, depending on who you ask, the number of planets range from 8 to over 30... its kinda a big range... So, what do you think would make a good one?

I think in terms of size, it should be small enough to not combust on its own or cause fussion or something along these lines. It should also be big enough to have a strong enough gravity to make it relativly round. Also, I think it should also dominate its own orbit around its star.

id like to hear what you guys think.

Moderator Comment: Transferred from separate thread, since it covers the same ground. (Thanks to Marnix for the implicit suggestion.) Ophiolite.

how about reading the thread More reasons Pluto should stay demoted ?

so how many drawf planets have they found past neptune? and isnt pluto a bi-planet? cuz pluto and charon orbit around the same point?

Originally Posted by Darth Lord Sidious

so how many drawf planets have they found past neptune? and isnt pluto a bi-planet? cuz pluto and charon orbit around the same point?

Even the sun and its surrounding solar system orbit around a common point.