Plutoids: a new class of objects beyond Neptune, Astronomy, politics or damage control |
Plutoids: a new class of objects beyond Neptune, Astronomy, politics or damage control |
Jun 12 2008, 09:44 AM
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Member Group: Members Posts: 340 Joined: 11-April 08 From: Sydney, Australia Member No.: 4093 |
Article on the BBC website: 'Non-planet' Pluto gets new class
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/7449735.stm QUOTE Now an IAU committee, meeting in Oslo, has suggested that small, nearly spherical objects orbiting beyond Neptune should carry the "plutoid" tag. It also goes on to say that not everybody is too excited about it: QUOTE "It's just some people in a smoke-filled room who dreamed it up," he told the Associated Press. "Plutoids or haemorrhoids, whatever they call it. This is irrelevant." -------------------- |
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Jun 19 2008, 06:35 PM
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Senior Member Group: Members Posts: 3419 Joined: 9-February 04 From: Minneapolis, MN, USA Member No.: 15 |
Honestly, if you're hung up on making differentiations, then simply call everything big enough to round itself and that primarily orbits the Sun a planet. Then subdivide into:
Rocky Dwarf Planets: Mercury, Ceres Icy Dwarf Planets: Pluto, Eris Terrestrial Planets: Venus, Earth, Mars Ice Giant Planets: Uranus, Neptune Gas Giant Planets: Jupiter, Saturn The only subdivision that is likely to see any change in the future will be Icy Dwarves, of course. And there *is* actually a good argument to be made to remove Pluto/Charon from its subdivision and create a new one, Double Planets, for any pair of objects big enough to self-round which orbit each other around a common point not contained within the surface of either planet. Fact is, we're probably likely to find many other such double planets out in the realm of accretion-without-perturbation (i.e., away from the gravitational harmonics Jupiter and Saturn created in the "main" system). Heck, this could be exciting -- right now, our own team, the Terrestrial Planets, are in the lead with three! Those Icy Dwarves are on our tail, though, with two and more on the way! It looks like someone's making a move to pass around the outside! (OK -- so I'm just thinking, if you could get the average NASCAR fan interested in the Solar System, it would have to be a good thing... *grin*...) -the other Doug -------------------- “The trouble ain't that there is too many fools, but that the lightning ain't distributed right.” -Mark Twain
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