Pluto faces demotion at astronomical conference

[WhiteTara]

http://www.macon.com/mld/macon/news/nation/15256814.htm
WASHINGTON - Ask most schoolchildren how many planets there are in our solar system, and they'll tell you nine.

It's been that way for generations, since a Kansas farm boy with a passion for astronomy discovered Pluto, the ninth planet.

But soon, there could be only eight. Pluto faces demotion.
snip
Driven largely by controversy over the status of Pluto, which doesn't share several key attributes of the solar system's eight other planets, the resolution could mean Pluto's dismissal from that select group.
snip
The committee writing the resolution has worked in secret. Few people know what it will recommend. Those who know aren't talking. Egos are involved. Some say U.S. pride has emerged (Pluto is the only one of the nine discovered by an American). And there's no guarantee that the conference will accept the recommended resolution, whatever it is.

should be interesting to see how astrologers deal with this conundrum

[Warren DeMontague]

1. What's next? Goofy washing dishes?

I tell you, someone needs to thaw Walt the fuck OUT.

[Tunkamerica]

9. HA!

good one

[Scurrilous]

10. Is it fair...

...that Pluto has to wear a leash and sleep in a doghouse while Goofy, who is also a dog, gets to drive around in a car and play golf with Mickey?

[Warren DeMontague]

16. Pluto's a dog. Goofy's a "Dawg".

That was the explanation I was always given.

[ComerPerro]

39. all animals are equal. but some animals are more equal than others

[The_Casual_Observer]

2. File this one under "They didn't have anything better to do"

[Warren DeMontague]

4. Huh?

Yes, God Forbid anyone should try to update our seriously decrepit, overly simplistic models of the Universe we live in.

[The_Casual_Observer]

6. Needless to say the overly simplistic model is too complicated

for most people to understand.

Here I thought that they were planning on adding a planet or two, and now this.

[Warren DeMontague]

7. Which must be the universe's fault.

Clearly, it should simplify itself to fit neatly into the confines of the domesticated primate brain.

Problem is, the notion of a little yellow plastic sun with nine little round planets in perfectly circular orbits doesn't describe reality any better than the notion of protons and neutrons as little billiard balls with electrons whirling around them... again, in perfectly circular orbits.



There is tons of stuff out there which doesn't fit our old models. For one, I appreciate anything that reminds people that the maps we use to describe reality are NOT "reality" itself, and are in need of constant updating as new data comes in. (SCIENCE!) I know that's hard for lots of people to deal with, which is why you have folks using certain several thousand year old "maps" provided them by Western religion, for instance, to "scientifically" explain things in the world--- even when those maps are plainly incapable of doing just that.

[The_Casual_Observer]

8. Do you have any idea how pretentious your posting sounds?

Who do you think you are? Einstein?
If I wanted to be insulted by somebody, I wouldn't have chosen you.

Ever worked out the 3 body problem?

[Warren DeMontague]

12. If you took that as insulting, that's your problem.

I can't think of a line of reasoning much more pretentious than one which says scientists trying to improve our understanding of the Universe "must not have anything better to do", frankly.

[The_Casual_Observer]

13. So is this one.

[Warren DeMontague]

14. Okay. Well, it wasn't intended that way.

Would you like to buy a monkey?

[The_Casual_Observer]

15. I'll take two.

:toast:

[Warren DeMontague]

17. Yeah, sorry, it's late & I should go to bed. Peace. nt

[Ghost in the Machine]

23. !!!

:spray: .... you owe me a keyboard and a glass of tea!! :rofl:

[hfojvt]

24. funny you should mention maps

Chapter 1 of EF Schumacher's "A guide to the perplexed" is titled "On Philosophical Maps"

"All through school and university I had been given maps of life and knowledge on which there was hardly a trace of many of the things I most cared about and that seemed to me to be of the greatest possible importance to the conduct of my life."

Of course, he is giving credence to some of the old maps.

Also, I was perusing the archives today and happened to read this one where I was talking about Pluto.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=105&topic_id=2362323#2362930

[Warren DeMontague]

37. If you re-examine the sentence you're responding to

you will notice that it is phrased in a particularly specific fashion.

Although I don't think those old maps work for everyone in the fashion you describe (part of the problem IMHO. "This works for ME" becomes "This needs to work for YOU"), certainly they work for some people.

In the fashion you describe.

I get a lot out of the Tao Te Ching, philosophically and ethically, and it's older than the New Testament.

But that's not what this is about. Not "Thou Shalt not Kill". More like, "The Earth is 6,000 years old"

You wouldn't use a kitchen repair handbook to find your way around Philadelphia, would you? Or a poetry anthology?

[WhiteTara]

30. My fav new thought is the String Theory

That the universe is vibrating strings that move in infinite ways. Basically the Universe is a song and we are part of the music...I would say our part of the song is cacophony. Now just how simple is that?

Btw, I saw your humor instantly and think you are funny.

[Warren DeMontague]

38. Thanks.

Yeah, I find string theory interesting, too. I remember reading in Scientific American not too long ago, that apparently we may be reaching an experimental place quite soon where we might be able to get results confirming or denying, indirectly at least, the existence of these weird extra dimensions postulated by it.

Trippy, and very hard to get one's mind around!

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

60. Seriously decrepit, overly simplistic model of the Universe?

This is, at most, a semantic argument.

[Warren DeMontague]

3. Now, a serious answer to this topic:

Pluto is either the smallest, oddest, most "un-planet" planet, or it's the closest (and one of the largest) Kuiper belt objects.

Frankly, I think anything that gets America's schoolkids.. and everyone else.. to stop and ponder the fact that the Solar System and the Universe are much more complex, vast, and fascinating than they most likely thought previously, is a good thing.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kuiper_belt

[hfojvt]

26. what about the

escaped moon of Neptune theory?

Also I read an article that stated the earth-moon system should be looked at as a dual planet which would make the moon a planet too. I forget where the center of earth-moon gravity is. If it is outside the earth's crust does that make a case for the moon as a planet?

[Warren DeMontague]

43. The Wikipedia article on the Kuiper belt is pretty good.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kuiper_belt

I don't know too much about the "escaped moon of Neptune" theory, except that I do know Pluto's orbit is significantly outside the plane of the ecliptic, and what we know about Pluto's composition and suspected origin tends to indicate it has more in common with what is estimated to be something like 70,000 (!) objects -800 Discovered so far- in the Kuiper belt than with any of the inner, rocky "planets".

As far as the Earth-moon dual planet notion. Again, I don't really know- I suppose it depends on how you want to define "planet" and "dual planet". From what I understand, evidence gained by the Apollo landings (an argument in favor of further manned space exploration, IMHO) pretty much closed the book on how the moon formed. An impact between a mars-sized protoplanet and proto-Earth during the formation of the solar system caused a huge amount of crustal goo to eject out and collect in orbit around the Earth, condensing into the moon.

The moon is one of the larger satellites in the SS, but as you know, it's not the biggest. Ganymede, I believe, is the largest. Part of the problem is, we have these names and categories, but they don't always line up with reality as we continually uncover it. For instance, I think Ganymede is nearly as big as Mars, Mars undoubtedly being a "planet".

One theory I *have* read about is that Earth's moon, being so large and tidally locked, may have played an important role in the development of life on Earth, by "taming" some of Earth's rotational eccentricities.

[xmas74]

53. That's the most common theory I've heard.

They've said for years now that Pluto does not fill all the requirements to be designated a planet. A common theory was that it might have been an escaped moon from Neptune or another one was an object from the Kuiper Belt.

I'd buy the escaped moon theory.

[ComerPerro]

40. Just wait until the fundies want equal time to get in their say

"Pluto was created by god as a planet" or "only God can decided if something is a planet or not."

[charlie]

5. Past due, I think

Now watch Republicans ban Chex cereals from Congressional cafeterias.

[Cobalt-60]

11. I won't recognize the change.

It's a planet until they prove with close up observations that it isn't.
If a charcoal briquette like Mercury is a planet, Pluto is a planet.

[leftofthedial]

18. what about Planet X?

Isn't there something past Pluto?

If Pluto isn't a planet, what is it?

[Warren DeMontague]

19. That's the thing. There's LOTS of stuff out there.

Pluto is apparently sort of the near end of something called the Kuiper belt. Trouble is, they've found lots of these so-called Kuiper belt objects which, if pluto is legitimately a "planet", so are they.

Really, Pluto was just the first one of this entirely different class of objects to be discovered, so it was filed away as a "planet", since that's all we knew back then.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kuiper_belt

http://solarsystem.nasa.gov/planets/profile.cfm?Object=KBOs

http://www.ifa.hawaii.edu/~jewitt/kb.html

[charlie]

21. Yup

A couple of weeks ago, a Kuiper Belt object larger than Pluto was discovered. If the rate of discovery continues, we could be naming dozens of new "planets" in the next decade.

http://www.space.com/scienceastronomy/050729_new_planet.html

Ceres was regarded as a planet for a few decades before it was demoted. It's time to do the same for Pluto. If nothing else, this'll make us hash out a more solid definition of what constitutes a "planet."

[CanuckAmok]

20. Existence ofPlanet X was confirmed, but its ownership is in dispute...

[Warren DeMontague]

22. Only because that Earth Creature has my space modulator.

Now, stop saying I sound like Alan Keyes!

[Zhade]

35. Not your Illudium Pew-36 Explosive Space Modulator!

Say it ain't so!

[Rude Horner]

25. Personally, I think there should be ten planets

in keeping with the metric system. Only nine planets? - intelligent design, my ass!! :)

[Cobalt-60]

27. Many Planets

Actually I think we're going to find space littered with planetary debris all the way out to the stars.

[Warren DeMontague]

42. Not if the Sharper Image Catalog can help it.

[FlaGranny]

28. I thought all objects that orbited a star

that were smaller than a planet, but larger than an asteroid, were called planetoids. Are the scientists just trying to decide whether Pluto is a planet or a planetoid? Is it just a matter of deciding where to draw the line? Or am I just all confoozled? We could just call all of them "solar orbiters."

[Cha]

29. I'm not an astrologer

per se but I study it and Pluto plays a very big part in the analysis. They can call Pluto what they want but it will still make it's presence known in the most dramatic ways.

[Bill McBlueState]

31. what about Sedna?

Or Quaoar? Do they also dramtically make their presence known? Is the drama associated with an astronomical object proportional to its mass, or some other property?

[Cha]

32. I'm sure they do but I

don't know enough about it to say what it is.

[elehhhhna]

33. What are we Scorpios supposed too DO? Figures we lose our PLANET.

[DireStrike]

34. Us Virgos are still waiting for ours

Bummer, it sounded like it was supposed to make us much better in general.

[elehhhhna]

36. oopsie forgot about that.

:(

[Warren DeMontague]

41. Oooh, Scorpio.

If experience is any guide, you guys'll manage.

Mrrrawr. :evilgrin:

[Kat45]

44. I used to work for an astronomy magazine, and

I remember them talking about this. Astronomers get real excited over shit like this.

[Bill McBlueState]

46. I guess some do

The guy who heads up the natural history museum in New York sure seems to enjoy the controversy.

But as an astronomer, I'm more interested in things like the composition, weather, and origin of Pluto. The particular label we stick on it doesn't seem that important, and strikes me as a way to generate a lot of heat about Pluto but no light.

[Warren DeMontague]

47. I bet you're pretty excited for 2015, then.

http://pluto.jhuapl.edu/mission/mission_timeline.html

:thumbsup:

[Bill McBlueState]

49. yep!

But it seems like this should have happened much sooner than 2015!

I don't work directly on Kuiper Belt objects -- I study the environments of young solar-mass objects, mostly in the Taurus-Auriga region. But theories about how planets form around very young stars make some predictions about what objects like Pluto should look like, so KBOs are sort of a side interest of mine.

[Warren DeMontague]

51. How neat!!!

What a great, exciting line of work to be in right now.

[Kat45]

48. I didn't know you're an astronomer.

You're in Western MA, right? Do you work at or go to one of the schools out there?

[Bill McBlueState]

50. I'm a grad student at UMass

I'm entering my sixth year, so the whole being a student thing is wearing a little thin. But this is a great area to live in. The night sky is good and dark from most places around here, although somewhat ironically, the more time I spend doing astronomical research, the less time I have to actually enjoy the night sky.

That reminds me, I should go see if the meteor shower is offering up any interesting sights. I think the Perseids peak either tonight or last night.

[Briarius]

55. I didn't see many, the moon is too bright

I was up in the 2-4am window the past couple nights (:evilgrin:) and I only saw a couple. The moon was just too bright, considering we could see our shadows from the moonlight.

[Midlodemocrat]

61. That is so cool! I love astronomy.

My high school actually had a planetarium in it! Loved it, loved it.

[xmas74]

54. You're an astronomer?

You're living my childhood dream. Just thought I'd let you know that you are officially cool in my book!

[Bill McBlueState]

57. thanks :)

Of course it's not all fun and games. I've spent most of the day trying to debug a simulation I'm working on, with very little success. Maybe I should have a beer, go to bed, and bother my advisor about it in the morning. :)

[xmas74]

58. I'm sure it's not.

But it was my childhood dream. I was the odd little girl in elementary and jr high checking out every book I could find on the subject, no matter what the size. I was teased alot for it too.

A teacher talked me out of it in high school, stating that it wasnt' a good field for women to go into. Small town idiot that I was I believed him.

Wish I'd kicked him in his sack instead of listening to him.

[Crabby Appleton]

45. pluto

should be grandfathered in.

[xmas74]

52. They've talked about doing this for a number of years now.

I'm not surprised at all.

[Ptah]

56. The UCLA astronomy dept. has a good picture.

[RedCloud]

59. I hope Nemesis blows it up...

Nerve of that renegade moon.

Ansd let's glue that asteroid belt together to see if it can become something better.

Vulcan exists!

[joneschick]

62. all day I've been seeing this thread as Pluto faces demolition

........and thinking WTF? that's utter nonsense. uh, derrrr! carry on. :head to table: