A Planet By Any Other Name...
Okay it is official. Pluto is no longer a planet.
Personally I think this is a cop out since if the international astronomers kept it as a planet they would then have to agree that three other recently found objects were also planets (especially since "Xena" is larger than Pluto and its orbit is occasionally closer to the sun than Pluto's).
They are now calling our friendly neighborhood ice ball a "dwarf planet". Hello? Do you not see the word planet in the name? White dwarfs and brown dwarfs are still types of starts are they not? Why then wouldn't a dwarf planet still be a type of planet and therefore (ta da) a planet????
According to the story on the Reuters by Alan Crosby web site the newly standardized definition of a planet is:
"... to be called a planet, a celestial body must be in orbit around a star while not itself being a star.
It must be large enough in mass for its own gravity to pull it into a nearly spherical shape and have cleared the neighborhood around its orbit."
The only criteria that Pluto doesn't qualify on is the shape of its orbit. Because it overlaps with Neptune (cuts across Neptune's orbit) it is no longer a full-fledged planet, it is now a dwarf.
But wait! They are saying that 'Xena' is also a dwarf so depending on who you talk to we either have 8 planets and two dwarfs or 10 planets. Oh yeah and there is now a third category: small solar system bodies (which may or may not include the asteroids - they weren't clear on that part).
This is going to make museums everywhere go nuts. The models of the solar system in classrooms everywhere will need to be updated. Textbooks will have to be updated. Hey IAU people - this is going to cost the government money! How much do you want to bet good old crafty Congress will find a way to pull dollars out of the NASA budget to pay for the updates?
Uh, guys you may have just shot yourselves in the foot. But hey, a planet by any other name still orbits the sun...
Personally I think this is a cop out since if the international astronomers kept it as a planet they would then have to agree that three other recently found objects were also planets (especially since "Xena" is larger than Pluto and its orbit is occasionally closer to the sun than Pluto's).
They are now calling our friendly neighborhood ice ball a "dwarf planet". Hello? Do you not see the word planet in the name? White dwarfs and brown dwarfs are still types of starts are they not? Why then wouldn't a dwarf planet still be a type of planet and therefore (ta da) a planet????
According to the story on the Reuters by Alan Crosby web site the newly standardized definition of a planet is:
"... to be called a planet, a celestial body must be in orbit around a star while not itself being a star.
It must be large enough in mass for its own gravity to pull it into a nearly spherical shape and have cleared the neighborhood around its orbit."
The only criteria that Pluto doesn't qualify on is the shape of its orbit. Because it overlaps with Neptune (cuts across Neptune's orbit) it is no longer a full-fledged planet, it is now a dwarf.
But wait! They are saying that 'Xena' is also a dwarf so depending on who you talk to we either have 8 planets and two dwarfs or 10 planets. Oh yeah and there is now a third category: small solar system bodies (which may or may not include the asteroids - they weren't clear on that part).
This is going to make museums everywhere go nuts. The models of the solar system in classrooms everywhere will need to be updated. Textbooks will have to be updated. Hey IAU people - this is going to cost the government money! How much do you want to bet good old crafty Congress will find a way to pull dollars out of the NASA budget to pay for the updates?
Uh, guys you may have just shot yourselves in the foot. But hey, a planet by any other name still orbits the sun...
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