New Definition of "Planet" Might Not Include Pluto

Originally posted by cmdrkeenkid

Originally posted by Timeseer
Please reframe from making one line responses or you will be fairly warned by moderators.

Please leave the thread direction and moderation to the ATS Staff and Moderators.

I am not moderating, just giving you a helpful tips up before you should be fairly warned by a moderator. After all you don't or at least shouldn't want to lose your warning before banning privledge. I surely wouldn't want to lose mine.

heh, *cough, cough* former moderator *cough, cough*

I have read all about this controversy about the defining of a planet and I have to say the newest "official" definition is one of the stupidiest ideas in the history of Astronomy. How many plutons are orbiting our sun? It could baloon the number of "planets" we have to put in the textbooks .

Anyway, I was reading Slashdot on this matter and one post in particular stood out to me. It was just some guy rambling on about his nomenclature of the planets and despite the poor grammer and punctuation, he made a lot of sense. Here, let me break it down from memory, cuz I don't want to dig it up...

A Planet is defined as a Round body in the solar system with at least a bit of atmosphere. This definition would include former moons and would disqualify Gas Giants , Moons and Asteroids.

A moon is defined as a Round atmosphere-less body residing in the solar system.

An Asteroid is defined as a small irregular object with little to no atmosphere. Mars' moons would be included in this category for instance.

And Gas Giants are planets that are made of gas and are very big.

One of the main points he stressed is the need for flexibility in the definitions and I can see why, cuz its turning out to be quite a bit more crowded then we originally thought.

is this just part of some big conspiracy to reissue millions of science books all through the world? think of the money that could be made simply by changing plutos planet status. cmdrkeenkid your knowledge is amazing.

Originally posted by elitegamer23
is this just part of some big conspiracy to reissue millions of science books all through the world? think of the money that could be made simply by changing plutos planet status. cmdrkeenkid your knowledge is amazing.

science books are regularly re-issued regardless. They don't need an excuse

Hello fellow Atsers...this being my first post on the Space Exploration forum, I like to share a question, which is related to the topic...

I recently heard there had been a couple of large "objects" newly found, beyond Pluto, which might expand the Solar System to 12 I believe...has anyone here heard about that, or posted about it?

Well your right in the sense that newly discovered objects in the kuiper belt stoked the debate of whether or not pluto and other kuiper belt objects are planets or not, which in turn led to the the IAUs new planetary def proposal

name given to the democratic war machine. its first leader was aaron burr

Well I think it's gonna baloon way beyond 12 planets. Before the Kuiper discovery I was of the mind that Pluto was a planet. Now I'm firmly in the mind that it isn't, and is merely a "Moon of the Sun." That is how I'm going to think of it from now on anyway.

I recently heard there had been a couple of large "objects" newly found, beyond Pluto, which might expand the Solar System to 12 I believe...has anyone here heard about that, or posted about it?

There have been several "large" objects discovered beyond Pluto. One of these (2003UB313) is actually slightly bigger than Pluto, and the others are somewhat smaller. 2003UB313 orbits the Sun at something like three times the average distance of Pluto (which is presumably why it wasn't discovered sooner, since it is apparently highly reflective).

Other sizable objects discovered include Sedna, Quaoar, and 2005FY9. Of these, Sedna is the most interesting, since it has an orbit more like a comet than a normal KBO. It is estimated to be around 1500kms in diameter (compared to 2300 for Pluto), so it is appreciably larger than most of the objects in the outer Solar System. It is currently near perihelion (closest approach to the Sun), but this is still over 90AUs away (roughly three times the current distance of Pluto). At aphelion (furthest distance from the Sun), it is not far short of 1000AUs ! That takes it out to the Inner Oort Cloud, so it is evidently a rather unique object. Nevertheless, I wouldn't be at all surprised if other objects like it are eventually discovered.


[edit on 23-8-2006 by Mogget]

why dont we just have a linnean taxonamy-esque classification system. For example
Kingdom-the type of star the body orbits
Phylum- would be the type of body(comet, asteroid, pluton etc)
Class- would distinguish it farther, maybe roundness
Order- ditto but with composition
Genus- size?
Species- the name of the planet

or something like that

obviously needs somework


[edit on 23-8-2006 by Vegemite]

SAVE PLUTO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! imagine being told there are 9 planets your whole life only to wake up one morning to just 8 planets . what a bunch of crap. i ask you cmdrkeenkid, do they want a definite deffinition of what a planet is because there is about to be a boom of planets found outside our solar system? just curious. you can always tell people pluto isnt a planet but there will always be the people who say, pluto lives!

Pluto is a KBO. There are eight major planets. So say we all


[edit on 24-8-2006 by Mogget]

Just seen on Sky News...

Officially, there are now EIGHT planets in our solar system!
news.sky.com...

So what happen to Planet Xena?

LAES it will join Pluto as a "dwarf planet" along with Ceres, from now on textbook will have the official 8 planets featured, Pluto will be excluded perhaps in a different section under "dwarf planets".

So now we have 8 planets and 3 dwarfs. Pluto’s moon Charon is no longer being considered for any status.

phew! They finally got something right. Now we have to wait out the onslaught of the pluto pundits (plundits)

Originally posted by Mogget
Pluto is a KBO. There are eight major planets. So say we all

[edit on 24-8-2006 by Mogget]

So is Neptune. It is also a KBO.

And Earth, Moon, Mars, and Jupter are alll ABOs.

I still think that the Gas Giants should be considered Failed Stars and NOT planets...

Originally posted by sardion2000
I still think that the Gas Giants should be considered Failed Stars and NOT planets...

You mean like Brown Dwarfs... I actually agree with you.

If there is anything that should beconsidered a planet over all other things it should just be our four terrestrial planets. But oh well...

My opinion on Pluto is that it is a planet even if it's covered in ice... It's got enough gravity to be a sphere of itself unlike asteroids or meteors... Based on the fact that it does have and orbit around the sun and is more similar to all the other classified planets it should remain a planet... Having moons should also help classify it as a planet... Asteroids should be in a completely different category of body thus eliminating them from the argument... So far all the other objects seem to represent that of an asteroid correct? Those in the Kuiper belt that is...

Many asteroids have moons. Does that mean that they should be classed as planets ?