Pissed off about Pluto

P

Prince_James

Plutarch (Mickey's Dog)
Registered Senior Member
Is anyone else just pissed the hell off that Pluto is a "dwarf planet"? I do not mean object to it on a scientific level, but a pure emotional reaction?

When I heard someone say we have "8 planets in our solar system" I felt like punching them in the face.

Seriously. We need to upgrade Pluto back to her original status.

I am specifically pissed off that only -424 people- voted for this and we are all expected to follow that.
 
I always said Pluto was just a small rock floating in space, threatening peace of Neptune with its orbit.
 
I did think this was retarded at first, but I think it is the best classification due to current knowledge. Classifying pluto as a planet was due to lack of knowledge of it being a kuiper belt object.
 
whats the big deal? its not like they blew pluto up, its just not called a planet. why is the number of planets so important? your argument makes no sense.
 
cato said:
whats the big deal? its not like they blew pluto up, its just not called a planet. why is the number of planets so important? your argument makes no sense.
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It's not supposed to make sense - it's an emotional reaction.
Prince_James said:
When I heard someone say we have "8 planets in our solar system" I felt like punching them in the face.
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I would have acted on impulse.

Those among us with little or no scientific understanding want Pluto back.
 
Well as pointed out by many scientists, the definition of planet is no more or less coherent now than it was before.
 
Prince_James said:
Well as pointed out by many scientists, the definition of planet is no more or less coherent now than it was before.
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yet the world scientific community decided that pluto is indeed not a planet. Therefore the definition of a planet has changed. so u are wrong...ditto...
 
draqon said:
I always said Pluto was just a small rock floating in space, threatening peace of Neptune with its orbit.
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Although Pluto is at times (very recently was) closer to the sun than Neptune, no collision in their current orbits is possible be cause of Pluto's large orbit inclination. I have read that the closest they can ever come is still 17AU separation, but I can not confirm this is fact. I think this is surely more than the separation of their orbit planes at Neptunes (nearly circular) orbit and more related to the 3 to 2 resonance that locks their periods together.
 
Billy T said:
Although Pluto is at times (very recently was) closer to the sun than Neptune, no collision in their current orbits is possible be cause of Pluto's large orbit inclination. I have read that the closest they can ever come is still 17AU separation, but I can not confirm this is fact. I think this is surely more than the separation of their orbit plane at Neptunes (nearly circular) orbit and more related to the 3 to 2 resonace that locks their periods together.
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the orbits intersect...thats what I was talking of.
 
draqon said:
the orbits intersect...thats what I was talking of.
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orbit PLANES intersect, not the orbits. (the orbit planes of all the planets are mutually intersecting, I am almost sure (99.99%)
 
The definition of the term 'planet' is much more coherent than before. See http://arxiv.org/pdf/astro-ph/0608359. The ratio of the mass M of a some body that orbits the Sun and the mass m of the other junk in the body's orbit that is free to collide with the body distinguishes planets and minor planets. The gap between the planets and the minor planets is immense: four orders of magnitude.

In many cases in the past, adding rigor to some concept has paved the way for the development of a lot of new science/mathematics. One example: Newton and Leibniz both used a loose concept of infinitesimals in their independent developments of the calculus. Weierstrass added the necessary rigor more than a century later. It is his epsilon-delta notation that is the bane of many introductory calculus students. This notation resulted in an explosion of mathematical knowledge.

Science needs rigor and precise definitions. Without them, astronomy would be little more than astrology.
 
Billy T said:
orbit PLANES intersect, not the orbits. (the orbit planes of all the planets are mutually intersecting, I am almost sure (99.99%)
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FG13_20.jpg


"Despite the fact that Pluto and Neptune temporarily change places in their distance from the Sun, they will never collide. This is due to two reasons: First, Pluto's orbit is inclined to the ecliptic. by 17 degrees. (To see an illustration of this, take a look at http://seds.lpl.arizona.edu/billa/tnp/overview.html.) So even though we say their orbits "cross", Pluto is actually quite a distance "above"Neptune. Secondly, Pluto orbits the Sun twice for every three orbits of Neptune. The two planets are said to be in a "resonance orbit". For such orbits, the two bodies never get close to each other. In fact, the closest the two planets come to each other is 2 billion kilometers."

NASA: Jim Lochner & Karen Smale
 
to Dargon:

thanks for correcting me. I remebered the 17 incorrectly as the closest approach. I imediately knew that was too much to be the separation in the orbit planes at Neptunes orbit, so still trusting my memory, I guessed that it might be true when their 3 to 2 resonance (aalso remembered)* was taken into account. My memory does some times play tricks on me. Thanks again for catching this time it did.
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* I rarely "Google" for any thing - just try to remember.
 
draqon said:
give us the def. of planet as accepted worlwide.
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The "worldwide definition" (there is no such thing) doesn't matter.

My definition of a planet is: an object that goes around another object.

The definition of a star is: an object that other objects go around.

Stars go around the center of the galaxy, thus they are also small planets at the same time, and planets are small stars because moons go around them.

Even a human can be a star (like Michael Jackson)
 
Are the little birdies circling your head planets? What are their names? Tweety, skippy, fluffy, and squeaker. How cute. Hope they don't get burned by your sun head.
 
D H:

Pray tell me how it makes sense to construe Earth and Jupiter as planets, despite the fact that the Earth is primarily rocky and Jupiter is exclusively or almost-exclusively gaseous (and basically a "failed star")? Yet Pluto, which shares with Earth a primacy of rock (and also a great deal of ice) is classified as a "dwarf planet"?

Moreover, what we call objects in space has no bearing on what they are. The definition of astronomical bodies are virtually moot to what they are. Calling Pluto a planet or not a planet ultimately is meaningless, but the fact that it is downgraded, discarded, and arbitrarily changed is what annoys the piss out of me.
 
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