Pluto Top Ten Contest, Is Pluto a Planet or Is It Not? |
Pluto Top Ten Contest, Is Pluto a Planet or Is It Not? |
Jan 6 2006, 12:29 PM
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Member Group: Members Posts: 531 Joined: 24-August 05 Member No.: 471 |
Planetary Society press release:
http://www.planetary.org/about/press/relea...t_Not__The.html - Is Pluto a Planet or Is It Not? The Planetary Society Seeks Top Ten Lists --- In honor of the launch of the New Horizons mission, the Society announces a call for the public to speak up and tell us: The Top 10 Reasons Pluto IS a Planet, or The Top 10 Reasons Pluto IS NOT a Planet Even The Planetary Society's own Board of Directors is split, with Chairman Neil deGrasse Tyson wanting to demote Pluto from the planetary ranks and other members of the Board staunchly defending Pluto's status. In the interest of impartiality and public engagement, The Planetary Society is calling for reasons on both sides of the issue. For the next eight days, visitors to the Society's website can share their reasons why Pluto should or should not continue to be ranked as one of the solar system's nine planets. The deadline for submissions is Thursday, January 12, 2006. The final Top 10 Lists will be released prior to the launch of the New Horizons mission. --- http://www.planetary.org/explore/topics/topten/ - Pluto Top Ten http://www.planetary.org/explore/topics/topten/enter.html - Enter the Contest! -------------------- - blue_scape / Nico -
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Jan 12 2006, 03:27 PM
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#2
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Member Group: Members Posts: 154 Joined: 17-March 05 Member No.: 206 |
Pluto is a planet because changing all the text books, encyclopedias, and references from the "9 planets of the solar system" to the "8 planets" would be cost-prohibative.
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Jan 12 2006, 06:33 PM
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#3
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Member Group: Members Posts: 624 Joined: 10-August 05 Member No.: 460 |
QUOTE (Chmee @ Jan 12 2006, 08:27 AM) Pluto is a planet because changing all the text books, encyclopedias, and references from the "9 planets of the solar system" to the "8 planets" would be cost-prohibative. Astronomy's archane nomenclature is one of my pet peeves - Star types, Saturns rings, galaxy types, numbering systems that were orgininally designed to help put things in order are wrot with confusion. Don't even get me going on astronomical units, and I have the same complaint about icons: how do you index and reference them? I have no way of knowing what my camera is telling me without plowing through a two-hundred page book, all in 8 pitch. I just aim and hope. So rather than create a plethoria of new planets, I would propose classifying all Kuiper belt objects as "Plutonian moons", including Pluto. Give the grade school kids a break - by the time they are adults, they will have learned to identify more icons than there are characters in the Chinese alphabet. |
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