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pluto to be deleted from catalogue?


alocispepraluger102

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Experts meet to decide Pluto fate

Astronomers are gathering in the Czech capital, Prague, hoping to define exactly what counts as a planet.

The International Astronomical Union hopes to settle the question of Pluto, which was first spotted in 1930.

Experts are divided over whether Pluto - further away and considerably smaller than the eight other planets in our solar system - deserves the title.

The stakes were raised when a bigger planet-type body, known as 2003 UB313, was discovered by a US astronomer.

Professor Mike Brown and colleagues at the California Institute of Technology have discovered several other planetary objects in an area at the edge of the solar system known as the Kuiper Belt.

Now delegates to the Prague conference are being asked to agree a formal definition of what is a planet for the first time.

One potential outcome of the meeting would be the promotion of 2003 UB313 - nicknamed Xena - into the exclusive club of "official" planets.

But Pluto's status as the ninth planet could also be in danger if the experts decide it no longer makes the grade.

Discovered in 1930, Pluto is just 2,360km (1,467 miles) across, and is vastly different to more familiar planets such as our own Earth, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn or even Neptune, Pluto's nearest neighbour.

But after being measured by the Hubble space telescope, 2003 UB313 was classified larger than Pluto, at some 3,000km (1,864 miles) across its diameter.

About 3,000 astronomers and scientists are meeting in Prague to determine the fate of Pluto and the relevance of millions of schoolbooks and encyclopaedias around the world.

There are suggestions the scientists could decide to include Pluto in a new classification system that marks them out as different to the eight larger planets.

The meeting opens on Monday and is due to last 12 days.

Story from BBC NEWS:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/2/hi/scie...ure/4789531.stm

Published: 2006/08/14 01:28:49 GMT

© BBC MMVI

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They can call themselves "Dwarf planetologists" :)

In June, we broke the news that astronomers might get the chance to vote in September on a new definition for the word “planet,” a wording that will be proposed by a panel that includes historians, educators and other non-astronomers.

Yesterday, NPR’s David Kestenbaum did some nifty digging into what that definition might be. Several of the panel members favor dividing round objects up as terrestrial planets (Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars), giant planets (Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune) and a third class that would include Pluto, NPR reported. “We’ll call them dwarf planets or something,” said Iwan Williams, an astronomer at the University of London who served on the panel, according to NPR.

http://www.abovetopsecret.com/forum/thread220856/pg1

Edited by Claude
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Is Pluto big enough for a Mosaic Select? Or just a Mosaic Single?

Hell, if the Four Freshman can get a full-blown Mosaic I don't see why the complete recordings of a cold, dead, maybe-planet can't get the big box treatment as well...

:w

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  • 2 weeks later...

This BBC report reads a bit strangely.

The scientists agreed that for a celestial body to qualify as a planet:

it must be in orbit around the Sun

it must be large enough that it takes on a nearly round shape

it has cleared its orbit of other objects

Pluto was automatically disqualified because its highly elliptical orbit overlaps with that of Neptune. It will now join a new category of dwarf planets.

If Pluto's orbit overlaps with Neptune's, then Neptune hasn't cleared its orbit of other objects. So Neptune doesn't qualify either.

MG

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:rfr

Here is the kicker Aggie87, or at least a conjecture.

What if by the year 2012, the world is engaged in a heavier world war.

What if scientist discovers and inbound object reminiscent of "World in Collision"

This object happens to a brown dwarf with a 3,600-year orbit around the sun after all

humanity does not account for recorded history during that period, right.

This object (call it Planet X) is inbound, hypothetical this is what brings

humanity closer together, soldiers and police will not want to fight amongst one another

but take care of their families and countries.

Wouldn't you think?

:alien:

As much as I think it's a joke, I'd be more worried about Aric's Bird Flu.

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