"Pluto is dead" - Mike Brown, It's official |
"Pluto is dead" - Mike Brown, It's official |
Aug 24 2006, 03:53 PM
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#16
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Member Group: Members Posts: 345 Joined: 2-May 05 Member No.: 372 |
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Aug 24 2006, 03:55 PM
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#17
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Senior Member Group: Moderator Posts: 3226 Joined: 11-February 04 From: Tucson, AZ Member No.: 23 |
grrr.... needless to say I am very unhappy right now. I'll live, but still
I'll see if www.demoteearth.com is still available. -------------------- &@^^!% Jim! I'm a geologist, not a physicist!
The Gish Bar Times - A Blog all about Jupiter's Moon Io |
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Aug 24 2006, 03:56 PM
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#18
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Senior Member Group: Members Posts: 2530 Joined: 20-April 05 Member No.: 321 |
This isn't science though. We have not measured the composition of anything, nor have we found something new. We've not measured an albedo, taken a spectra, imaged an occultation......it's just administration. And to be honest, given that 2 weeks ago we had 9 planets, 1 week ago we had 12 or more, and now we have only 8.....it's made the scientists involved looked more than a little silly. Doug I completely agree. Several years ago, I stated the opinion that it is a mistake to think that doing science is hard but naming things and defining categories is easy. In this case, none of the "science" is particularly sophisticated: You could teach an intelligent person with no science background all of the relevant science in at most a few hours. This is very different from the debates around biological taxonomy, which pertain to encyclopedic arcana. I would have put this issue to professional categorists, cognitive scientists to wit, instead of professional astronomers. In a business, you learn that professionals in area X really are better at it than smart people who are dabbling in area X. A smart engineer should not take over a sales job. A smart marketer should not install computer hardware. I think what we've seen here is that being smart at astronomy doesn't make someone a good categorist. I think if the "facts" and position-papers supporting three to ten rival definitions had been handed to people who study categorization, they could have rendered an elegant embarassment-free definition that the scientists themselves could not. They were basically operating in an area outside their expertise: Astronomy has had an easy time of it, distinguishing between white dwarfs and neutron stars, neutron stars and black holes: distinctions that are sharp and clear. The first outing in a really tough categorization task has shown the lack of experience. |
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Aug 24 2006, 04:05 PM
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#19
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Senior Member Group: Members Posts: 2173 Joined: 28-December 04 From: Florida, USA Member No.: 132 |
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Aug 24 2006, 04:16 PM
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#20
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Senior Member Group: Members Posts: 2173 Joined: 28-December 04 From: Florida, USA Member No.: 132 |
This isn't science though. We have not measured the composition of anything, nor have we found something new. We've not measured an albedo, taken a spectra, imaged an occultation......it's just administration. This whole discussion has opened up precisely because of how many new things have been discovered about the solar system. Science is not just the collecting of data, it is also putting the data in context with what is already known. Like the classification system of living things has changed with new genetic studies, the classification of solar system objects must change with new discoveries. In neither case will the changes be quick, easy, static or uncontroversial. But in both cases, the classification discussions are very much part of the science. |
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Aug 24 2006, 04:18 PM
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#21
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Member Group: Members Posts: 648 Joined: 9-May 05 From: Subotica Member No.: 384 |
Well, I'm personaly not very happy about losing Pluto as planet but at least I can say that I have saw all 8 planets with my 4,5" telescope...
I'm just guesing what size asteroid (or whatever) has to be to be planet...because when Pluto was discovered it was thought it is 6000 km in diameter, and that would be a planet! -------------------- The scientist does not study nature because it is useful; he studies it because he delights in it, and he delights in it because it is beautiful.
Jules H. Poincare My "Astrophotos" gallery on flickr... |
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Aug 24 2006, 04:24 PM
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#22
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Member Group: Members Posts: 809 Joined: 11-March 04 Member No.: 56 |
And now I have to update my rhyme:
As for Pluto, Sir or Madam, Fame and glory, it has had 'em But it's gone the way of Adam -- Wasn't good enough for me! Gimme that Old Time Solar System Gimme that Old Time Solar System Ceres, Pluto -- never missed 'em They're not good enough for me! |
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Aug 24 2006, 04:24 PM
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#23
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Founder Group: Chairman Posts: 14431 Joined: 8-February 04 Member No.: 1 |
B)--> .because when Pluto was discovered it was thought it is 6000 km in diameter, and that would be a planet! [/quote]
No it wouldn't.....it's neighbourhood would not be cleared so it wouldn't be a planet. Unfortuantely, the same is true of almost every 'planet' in our solar system...so this definition has written of most of the planets we have. I'm unsure of how many Venus and Mercury crossing asteroids there are...but at the moment I think we've got about 3 planets by this definition. Doug |
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Aug 24 2006, 04:26 PM
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#24
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Senior Member Group: Members Posts: 2530 Joined: 20-April 05 Member No.: 321 |
B)--> Well, I'm personaly not very happy about losing Pluto as planet but at least I can say that I have saw all 8 planets with my 4,5" telescope... [/quote] Yeah! I will add that I saw all of them in one night, and I made the observations of increasing distance from the Sun, with the Moon inserted into the sequence. Had to stay up mighty late to do it. |
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Aug 24 2006, 05:04 PM
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#25
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Member Group: Members Posts: 129 Joined: 25-March 05 Member No.: 218 |
I read that Pluto was the only planet discovered by an American. Yep... Clyde Tombaugh discovered it in 1930 from Arizona. Throughout the 1920's, there had been a lot of hype in the U.S. public print media about "the search for Planet X". It was suspected because of supposed perturbations seen in Neptune's orbit that another outer planet should exist. Clyde knew after the discovery that it could not have been the Planet X they were looking for... it was too small to be responsible for the Neptune perturbations. (which later observations resolved away any large discrepancies in Neptune's orbit, so in fact, they were searching in vain). Actually, the only people with any justifiable emotional connection with Pluto and its status should probably be Percival Lowell (of the infamous "canals on Mars" ordeal), Clyde Tombaugh, and perhaps, Walt Disney ... and I doubt right now that they care. The true person who pushed for the search was Percival Lowell, who employed Clyde at his observatory near Flagstaff, AZ for the main purpose of searching for "Planet X". If there hadn't been all the hoopla of "looking for Planet X" and the "name the new planet" hype afterward... the 1930 discovery would probably have been barely noticed except for a mention of "asteriod found on the edge of the solar system in highly inclined orbit". But, as it was, with all the hype, Percival Lowell got his claim to fame... since the selection of the winning name of Pluto officially has as its symbol an overlapping "PL"... his initials! |
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Aug 24 2006, 05:12 PM
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#26
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Member Group: Members Posts: 809 Joined: 11-March 04 Member No.: 56 |
If there hadn't been all the hoopla of "looking for Planet X" and the "name the new planet" hype afterward... the 1930 discovery would probably have been barely noticed except for a mention of "asteroid found on the edge of the solar system in highly inclined orbit". I don't believe that's at all true. In the context of 1920s astronomy, minor planets (asteroids) were defined by their position inside Jupiter's orbit. There was no term other than "planet" available to describe Pluto at the time, as it certainly was not a comet or a meteor. Pluto was also initially (and for several decades) imagined to be at least the size of Earth. Someone who described Pluto as an "asteroid" in 1930 would have looked ridiculous. Regardless of the inclination of its orbit (which is, for most people, a pretty esoteric detail), any object beyond Neptune that was bright enough to be detected in 1930 would have been dubbed a planet. The importance of the "Planet X" search has nothing to do with "hype", but rather the fact that without the Planet X search Pluto would not have been discovered at all in 1930, and probably not for another six decades. |
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Guest_JamesFox_* |
Aug 24 2006, 05:16 PM
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#27
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Guests |
Well, I don't really minf the intent to divide things into the 8 regular planets, dwarf planets, and all others, but I think the given definition is screwey. They should have used the vague, but more appropriate term 'orbital dominance'.
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Aug 24 2006, 05:20 PM
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#28
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Member Group: Members Posts: 510 Joined: 17-March 05 From: Southeast Michigan Member No.: 209 |
I will add that I saw all of them in one night... ...and I'm relieved that I don't have to try for "Xena" now - can't afford that kind of equipment! -------------------- --O'Dave
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Aug 24 2006, 05:50 PM
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#29
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Member Group: Members Posts: 540 Joined: 25-October 05 From: California Member No.: 535 |
...and I'm relieved that I don't have to try for "Xena" now - can't afford that kind of equipment! All I can say is... The New Horizons website will have a couple of revising to do... -------------------- 2011 JPL Tweetup photos: http://www.rich-parno.com/aa_jpltweetup.html
http://human-spaceflight.blogspot.com |
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Aug 24 2006, 06:05 PM
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#30
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Senior Member Group: Members Posts: 1729 Joined: 3-August 06 From: 43° 35' 53" N 1° 26' 35" E Member No.: 1004 |
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