Experts meet to decide Pluto fate, Finally we'll know what a 'planet' is... |
Experts meet to decide Pluto fate, Finally we'll know what a 'planet' is... |
Aug 14 2006, 06:06 AM
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Member Group: Members Posts: 295 Joined: 2-March 04 From: Central California Member No.: 45 |
-------------------- Eric P / MizarKey
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Aug 16 2006, 12:48 PM
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Senior Member Group: Members Posts: 2454 Joined: 8-July 05 From: NGC 5907 Member No.: 430 |
Just how binding is the IAU decision on astronomers, both professional and
amateur? Does it have to be taken any more seriously than, say, the UN Outer Space Treaties are? People are already buying up lunar property. Just wait until corporations start landing there to mine the regolith and see how quickly and easily their lawyers circumvent that dated bunch of rules. As for an example right here on Earth, the Antarctic Treaty is frequently violated and ignored by the numerous countries which claim various sections of the southernmost continent, which they have sliced up like a pie. There are even ongoing disputes over who owns certain parts of Antarctica. In their efforts to keep Pluto an "official" planet, the IAU has made the issue even more complicated for future generations. We still know so little about "Xena" and you know there are even bigger worlds out there just waiting to be found and argued over. And what about all those objects orbiting other stars? They should have gone with planetoids. -------------------- "After having some business dealings with men, I am occasionally chagrined,
and feel as if I had done some wrong, and it is hard to forget the ugly circumstance. I see that such intercourse long continued would make one thoroughly prosaic, hard, and coarse. But the longest intercourse with Nature, though in her rudest moods, does not thus harden and make coarse. A hard, sensible man whom we liken to a rock is indeed much harder than a rock. From hard, coarse, insensible men with whom I have no sympathy, I go to commune with the rocks, whose hearts are comparatively soft." - Henry David Thoreau, November 15, 1853 |
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