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Not my pic.

Wich is a bloody shame because it appears to have not one but at least three moons. All planets with the exception of Venus and Mercury have moons.

I suppose it could make sense, in a way....

It depends on how a planet is defined. Not being an astronomer, I have no idea - in fact is a "planet" defined in any way?

But it can't be because it's an object that orbits the sun, 'cos all the asteroids (and comets if it comes to that) also orbit the sun.

And Pluto is very small. Exactly how small compared with some of the asteroids and/or moons of Jupiter I also don't know, but possibly smaller or less mass than some of the "great moons"?.

Just some food (green cheese?) for thought..

Cheers,
Diolma

I thought Pluto was Mickey Mouse's dog  ! ?

Pluto is now classed as a dwarf planet, so they will have to change its name to Dopey, Sleepy, Doc, etc.

This is going to really effect property values. Bryster, I would be selling the holiday home on Pluto before things get too bad.

Astrologers aren't going to like this......     A minor planet is not too bad at all...

Mars will be next! resistance is futile :tt2:

Pluto is a dwarf planet by the below definition and is recognized as the prototype of a new category. This category is being called "plutonian objects."

Aside from the 8 classical planets there are several non-planetary objects: Pluto, Charon, Ceres, and UB313 (a.k.a. Xena).

The IAU (Interational Astronomers Union) therefore resolves that planets and other bodies in our Solar System be defined into three distinct categories in the following way:

(1) A classical planet is a celestial body that (a) is in orbit around the Sun, (b) has sufficient mass for its self-gravity to overcome rigid body forces so that it assumes a hydrostatic equilibrium (nearly round) shape, and (c) has cleared the neighbourhood around its orbit.

(2) A dwarf planet is a celestial body that (a) is in orbit around the Sun, (b) has sufficient mass for its self-gravity to overcome rigid body forces so that it assumes a hydrostatic equilibrium (nearly round) shape, (c) has not cleared the neighbourhood around its orbit, and (d) is not a satellite.

(3) All other objects orbiting the Sun shall be referred to collectively as "Small Solar System Bodies".

I'm suprised they don't subdivide the classical into two separations of terrestrial (rocky, but with a significant atmosphere to cause weathering) and gas giant.

Also whatever happened to the term "planetoid"?

Or why not borrow from Star Trek or other sci-fi and write up a whole planetary classification system?

sigh..now it can be said that no American has ever discovered a planet..;) where's my tinfoil hat..;)
I saw that at dinner..reprobates. I wanted a planet called Xena..;)

I hate it when I loose a planet.

Quote - I hate it when I loose a planet.

OMG, that's tooo funny!

Well, now we know for sure, the universe is shrinking!!! or... at least, downsizing.  :m_laugh:

What a joke!

People actually get paid to figure this kind of stuff out

Ang: Dream on!  They try re-classifying my home, they'll be in big trouble!

Apparently Pluto is smaller than the North American continent.

People .... this is what scientists do.  They study stuff and they classify stuff.  It doesn't change the stuff.  It still is what it is.

It used to drive me nuts when I was working in Bacteriology that every time I learned what I thought was a lot about a particular baterium or family of bacteria, "THEY" would reclassify the blasted thing and give it a new name, put it in a new group ... decide it wasn't really a bacterium, it was a plant.  Aaaaargh!!  Then, I got over it.

I really doubt that how we classify little Pluto, it won't amount to much in the grand scheme of things.  I don't plan to rip it off my sun and planets mobile any time soon.

A planet is a terrible thing to lose.

They've  been talking about Pluto not actually meeting planet criteria for a while.  It is all a ploy by text book publishers to sell more (corrected) books. 

This is so stupid.   No body is going to change the mind set of nine planets.  No body is going to stop naming nine.  " I want to own a telescope some day that I can see all 8 planets and the Plutonian object"  yeah right

What’s next then?

Our Moon is too big to be a moon? Earth B perhaps.

 Saturn has too many rings??

Let’s not even consider Uranus.

My astrologist went insane when he heard  the news...what will now happen to the scorpio-sign people? lol

I hadn't thought of that (being a Scorpio..;) Hate to say it, but you're gonna shell out some major cash to see Pluto (whatever it is..;)  There's a satellite probe heading that way, should get there in a decade or so..I'll catch those when I can (if Southern cooking doesn't kill me first..;)

Nothing at all has changed in the real universe out there.

Just some things in human's brains.  And a whole lot of media airtime...

Realistically, they've recently discovered a whole lote of beyond Neptune objects, if Pluto is a planet what about them??  So they've tightened up the definitions.  In reality a single word Planet that defines Mars and Jupiter is a bit of a joke.  Terms like Gas Giant are a whole lot more useful...

"All planets with the exception of Venus and Mercury have moons."

This is true, but there are moons and there are moons - and the difference between these types of moons points to another interesting distinction between planet types. Earth and Mars do have moons, but they are rather unlike those of the larger planets (save, to some extent, Neptune*).

The moons of the four "gas giants" (Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune*) are thought to have formed at the same time as their parents, as part of the general conglomeration of stuff that came together in a local gravitational sub-attraction orbiting the early Sun.
*Neptune is an exception since it appears to have captured its large moon Triton after its formation, and the captured body's retrograde and eccentric motion disrupted Neptune’s 'native' moons.

Earth and Mars are more like Neptune's case. Mars captured the tiny asteroids Phobos and Deimos relatively recently, and those are predicted to crash into Mars relatively soon (in geological timescales). Earth apparently 'captured' a Mars size body so closely that there was a collision, with the heavy part of the captive falling into the early Earth's core while the lighter stuff went into orbit (with a portion of the early Earth) to eventually form our Moon.

So none of the inner planets appear to have had 'native' moons that formed alongside them, whereas all the outer planets appear to have had 'native' moons. Including Pluto. Pluto's moons are in circular orbits about Pluto's equator - a good indicator that they formed together (especially in conjunction with the fact that Pluto doesn't have enough mass to go around capturing moons willy-nilly). So in this sense Pluto is more akin to the gas giants than are the inner planets.

This “dominating an orbit” category for planet status does not convince me. Orbital resonance is a complex issue that is largely still beyond our computational abilities, but nevertheless there is an observed (approximate) gravitational resonance between Jupiter and Saturn (and by further association all the other outer planets).  If Pluto is "dominated" by Neptune in a resonance, then I think it's reasonable to suspect that Saturn is dominated by Jupiter (even if the computational modelling can't confirm it).

The reason for the reclassification is the realisation that there are probably loads of bodies out there bigger than Pluto. So, we either have eight planets and loads of "Kuiper belt objects" (Plutinos); or just loads of planets. Either way the "text books" will need replacing, so why not go for the easiest replacement route? Even though, as rickymaveety# indicates, the whole classification thing is an arbitrary exercise.

- 

"My astrologist went insane when he heard  the news...what will now happen to the scorpio-sign people?"

Heh, your astrologer was either already insane, if he genuinely believed in his "field of study", or insanely clever in convincing you of its veracity. Speaking as an allegedly "Scorpio-sign" person who was born while the Sun was actually in the constellation Libra, I can confirm that astrology is an utter load of bollocks.

 _

I'd classified rickymaveety as a bloke - rickymaveety's avatar challenges this classification. Is nothing sacred? :-)

OK,.....so let me get this straight,..........Mickey Mouse's dog is still named Pluto, right ? Or did they change that too ? And he does still belong to Mickey,......or has he been given to Donald Duck ? And what happens to the Walmart planned to open on Pluto in early 2009 ? I'm vexed !

This has been in the works for a very long time and I'm not surprised at all. We now have a coherent planetary system as far as verbiage is concerned.

***My astrologist went insane when he heard  the news...what will now happen to the scorpio-sign people?"***Heh, your astrologer was either already insane, if he genuinely believed in his "field of study", or insanely clever in convincing you of its veracity. Speaking as an allegedly "Scorpio-sign" person who was born while the Sun was actually in the constellation Libra, I can confirm that astrology is an utter load of bollocks.

Come on PJF; can't you recognize a JOKE/WISECRACK ? Don't underestimate our sense of humor! :-)

It is official, Pluto is relegated to the Dog House, while Uranus will still be the butt of all the jokes.

Earth has a 'Moon', the rest have satellites................

HA!! 

PJF .... trust in the avatar. By any classification scheme, I don't think I'd qualify as a male.

Ricky (not a bloke) Maveety

maybe you're a dwarf male?..;) or just the Plutonian version?..;) ask a scientist..;)

Just wondering - if a very large moon (like some of those orbiting Jupiter/Saturn) had (or maybe already has) captured its own (orbiting) satelite, is there any official definition of what that should be called? "Moonlet"?  " Satellitette"? "Incongruous lump of matter orbting in a pattern we can't quite predict"? (there's got to be an acronym there, somwhere.. but my astronomical telescope (= pair of binoculars) can't resolve it...)

:-))

Cheers,
Diolma

What did you expect?

Mickey is a mouse. He talks, lives an a house, wears clothes, drives a car etc.

Donald is a duck. He talks but no one can understand him, wears clothes but not pants, etc.

Goofy is a dog, he talks, wears clothes, lives in a house, drives a car, etc.

Pluto is a dog, he doesn't talk, can't drive, lives in a dog house, etc. In terms of the cartoon universe it was only a matter of time before he was demoted to a lesser status.

Maybe if they had named the planet Goofy to begin with they could have stood a chance.

Quote - Pluto is a dwarf planet by the below definition and is recognized as the prototype of a new category. This category is being called "plutonian objects.".

Plutonian?  Hey, that doesn't sound so very bad - makes it sound 'heavy man'!

I don't think I'm going to find it all that easy to stop calling it a planet though - like stopping calling a pound of flour - a pound of flour.

Drat, I've now got this vision of a massive bag of flour orbiting around the outskirts of the solar system....

electroglyph you got it right thsi explains it better than anything else. I still want more planets nto less. Xena is welcome here. **
**

Ah, but they named the dog after the planet and not the planet after the dog.  The planet was named by a little girl (Venetia Burney) and Pluto the dog got his name in honor of the planet's discovery.

I still think it was pretty phenomenal that they discovered that little bit of rock out there in the cold dark empty waaaaay back in 1930.  And, to me it will always be a planet, no matter how they decide to classify it.  It isn't like I have to take exams on this stuff anymore, so no one is going to care what I think about Pluto (the planet, not the dog).

My sister used to be Pluto (the dog, not the planet) at Disneyland.  I know, not germaine to the discussion, but there you are.

Babbling now ... going beddy bye. 

This is all just wannabe famous scientists feeding their ego and self-imposed importance.

I bet Uranus doesn't get "dwarfed"....and if it does...my sympathies, lol.   ;oÞ

Wait,...........just heard that Mars has been declared a blight area and is slated for destruction ! There will be a "Hooters" put in it's place.

Apparently the new definition of 'planet' excludes Mercury, Venus, Earth, and Mars (we all have stuff floating around in our orbit).  So there are only 4 planets in the solar system now.

What do you want? We just live in a dwarf galaxy.

Attached Link: http://www.iau2006.org/mirror/www.iau.org/iau0602/iau0602_resolution.html

Not by any definition I can find.

It all goes back to how scientists get paid. There is a citation index. It's a list of how many times other scientists mention your publications in their publications.

You can get a high index number by being Einstein and saying E=MC squared. Everybody for the next fifty years will be publishing papers that say, " As Einstein said, E=MC squared" therefore.....

The other way to get a high index number is to say something really boneheaded and asinine like," Never mind Marylyn Monroe, Einstein was gay." Then just wait for all the know-it-alls in the galaxy to contradict you in their publications.

Next year the review board looks at your citation index and it's wayyyy up. There is nothing to show if it’s positive or negative comments. They will decide, "This guy needs a raise!"

Man

If I can lose a planet overnight, ain't no wonder I cant find my freakin' tools!

:)

BT

Now the real question:
Is a dwarf planet still a planet?

That should keep them arguing for at least a decade.

I'm so confused,......................is it pants first,  then shoes, or shoes first,  then pants ?
                                                                                                    Vexed on Venus.

Quote - This is all just wannabe famous scientists feeding their ego and self-imposed importance.

I bet Uranus doesn't get "dwarfed"....and if it does...my sympathies, lol.   ;oÞ

Hardly.  Uranus is a gas giant, the third largest planet in the solar system. 
The Earth, Mars, Venus, and Mercury would be demoted from planetary status
long before Uranus. 

I had my doubt about scientists ever since they said that the universe will one day shrink and collapse upon itself. This issue about Pluto proves that they have nothing better to do.

Peace.

Quote - I had my doubt about scientists ever since they said that the universe will one day shrink and collapse upon itself. This issue about Pluto proves that they have nothing better to do.

Peace.

What do you consider something better to do?  And why do you think this something is better?

"The Universe is expanding" - Woody Allen..;)

"1500 years ago everyone knew the Earth was flat, 500 years ago  everyone knew there were witches, and 15 minutes ago you knew that we were alone in the Universe" - Men in Black

What will we know in 500 years?

"What will we know in 500 years?"

That the Buffalo Bills still haven't won a Super Bowl.

Quote - > Quote - I had my doubt about scientists ever since they said that the universe will one day shrink and collapse upon itself. This issue about Pluto proves that they have nothing better to do.

Peace.

What do you consider something better to do?  And why do you think this something is better?

Nothing better to do than telling stories that they called theories. They used to say that if the damn thing is round is was called a planet. Today, Pluto is no longer a planet. However, tomorrow...

now we have to fill out the dwarf planet destruction for hyperspace freeway form..I hate paperwork.

Of course, in 500 years, the Cubbies might actually take home a pennant, or was that the White Sox? ..;)

If naked Vicki pictures can be called art, why can't Pluto be a planet?

Quote - "What will we know in 500 years?"

That the Buffalo Bills still haven't won a Super Bowl.

You never know, they could play  the Minnesota Vikings.