2003 Ub 313: The Incredible Shrinking Planet?, No bigger than Pluto? |
2003 Ub 313: The Incredible Shrinking Planet?, No bigger than Pluto? |
Guest_BruceMoomaw_* |
Jan 31 2006, 09:20 PM
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Guest_BruceMoomaw_* |
Apr 18 2006, 06:40 AM
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Well, you've got to set the goalposts at SOME point. And the case for setting them at just a bit smaller than Pluto is pretty good, precisely because Pluto has been thought of as a planet for so long -- given the rate at which KBOs are being discovered now, it's unlikely that there will ever again be a gap so long between the discovery of KBOs more than 2000 km wide.
Of course, we should also very definitely be teaching kids that at this point the word "planet" doesn't have any scientific significance, that all it means is "object bigger than such-and-such a diameter", and that at this point we have no idea how many "planets" the Sun has even by that arbitrary criterion (and, for that matter, we never WILL know, thanks to the possibility of big Oort Cloud objects). If we're not going to admit that "planet" is strictly an arbitrary standard, we should stop using the word at all -- but I very much doubt that's going to happen. All we can do is make sure that people know what it actually signifies at this point. |
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