Pluto loses planet status

[Laphroaig]

Originally Posted by Blitzgal

Jupiter is way fatter.

I've heard Jupiter saying that it just has big bones.

[ryanknapper]

Originally Posted by Laphroaig

I've heard Jupiter saying that it just has big bones.

Just like Uranus.

[stjoe]

Originally Posted by devilishone

Pluto DID NOT lose its planet status and we're getting 3 new ones to make your password longer Fuck...

This is the way I heard it (minus Fuck's password).

[germuhknee]

If no one wants Pluto anymore, I hereby claim it in the name of me. It shall be known henceforth as Fuck You, Earthlings.

[WhiskyTango]

The TSA just reclassified ice as a liquid. Not even the states of matter are safe.

[DWarrior]

Originally Posted by ezmeray

aw, i loved pluto.. so did like everyone, now those little things they teach kids to remember the names of the planets in orderr are going to be wrong too.. you know like.. hmm, waht was the one i learned.. oh, right, My Very Educated Mother Just Brought Us Nine Pizzas... umhmm, how lame is that i remember that? really..

My Very Educated Master Just Beat Up Ninjas

[ryanknapper]

What's 'B' and where's Saturn?

[benjita]

Originally Posted by Blitzgal

I don't understand how Pluto can be downgraded from a planet but one of its moons can suddenly become a planet. And there is also an asteroid that they want to call a planet now, too. One of them is known as Xena right now, though they're going to give it an "official" name if it gets upgraded.

The proposal that was knocked down last week would have kept Pluto as a planet. Charon, Pluto's largest moon, would have become a planet as well. The reason for this is recent research. The rotation of Charon around Pluto has been studied, and it shows the rotation centered outside of the Pluto land mass. For instance, if you centered the Moon's rotation, it would be (more or less) at the center of the Earth. The rotation of Charon is above the surface of Pluto. Both Pluto and Charon rotate around that invisible axis and it is that axis that rotates around the sun. This would have made it a "double-planet" situation.

UB-313 ("Xena") is at least as large as Pluto (maybe larger), and if we considered Pluto a planet, we would have had to consider UB-313 a planet as well. The same goes for Ceres.

The reason UB-313 and Ceres were disqualified was that they share an orbit with other celestial bodies. Each of the other planets has cleared their orbit of any opposing bodies (and any that were there have either fallen into a "moon" orbit or been smashed up into the planets' rings), and rotate around the Sun alone. Since Ceres is in the Asteroid Belt, and has not cleared its way of any neighbors, it doesn't qualify. UB-313 is part of a similar belt called the "Plutons" on the outskirts of the Solar System.

Pluto remained a questionable case. It doesn't have anything in its path that it hasn't sucked up into orbit (I think we're up to 3 moons of Pluto, including Charon). However, its orbit isn't a roughly round shape, it's more elliptical, which brings it in closer than Neptune 20 years out of its cycle (which just ended recently). Since it is an erratic orbit (which changes EVERY cycle), scientists decided that it does not meet their specifications of a planet. I don't know why they didn't promote Charon, since it's nearly the size of Pluto and the center of mass for both planets is not within either.

However, they are still called "dwarf planets", which may appease some people, who insist that Pluto is a planet. Pluto, Ceres and UB-313 are now considered "dwarf planets". Not sure what this means for astronomy class, though.

[NSS2525]

A part of me is sad to lose Pluto, but I can live with it.

[deuce]

I always suspected Pluto wasn't keepin' it real