|
Pages: 1 2 [3] 4
|
 |
|
Author
|
Topic: Pluto is no longer a planet! Poor Fwiffo! (Read 14273 times)
|
SanderScamper
Zebranky food
 Offline
Posts: 12
|
You're all overreacting, this is just the natural progression of how real science goes on. Imagine if we didn't make this desision now and when the time came to go to other solar systems it would be a significant problem, you should be happy it's resolved now and hopefully forever. Just because you grew up with the idea of Pluto being a planet don't make it so. What they've done is remove all the niggling little perspective problems, which is what science should be doing. The physical laws of the universe ovveride our opinions and science is reflecting that by dictating the definitions of planetary status upon those laws.
|
|
|
|
|
Logged
|
|
|
|
Draxas
Enlightened
Offline
Gender: 
Posts: 1044
|
But the definition remains, as it always has been, completely arbitrary.
And anyone who thinks that New Horizons would have made it to the launch phase if Pluto had been declared a "dwarf planet" 10 years ago is crazy. It would have been deemed unimportant to the non-scientists who decide the budgets for these projects, and would have been passed over for something "more significant." Just because it's small and hasn't cleared its orbit, doesn't mean it's any less interesting than the other planets.
I don't know, regardless of definitions, I'll miss seeing Pluto in our solar system from here on out. Because, simply put, it's only a matter of time before it's eliminated from the popular conciousness. After all, how many obscure, unpronouncable names can the average schoolkid memorize from the Kuiper Belt?
|
|
|
|
|
Logged
|
|
|
|
Deus Siddis
Enlightened
Offline
Gender:
Posts: 1387
|
From SanderScamper
You're all overreacting, this is just the natural progression of how real science goes on.
The development of new technologies is a much better example of "real" science than the simple wasting of funding it takes to fly doofs from around the world to a conference where they decide what to reclassify large spheres of matter, based on a show of hands.
Imagine if we didn't make this desision now and when the time came to go to other solar systems it would be a significant problem, you should be happy it's resolved now and hopefully forever.
Yea, we can't travel to other systems because we wouldn't know what to call the planetoids there. Oh no wait, that's not the reason, its because the scientific community is working hard on its rock ball definitions instead of developing the tech that might someday get us there. 
The physical laws of the universe ovveride our opinions and science is reflecting that by dictating the definitions of planetary status upon those laws.
No, I don't think those laws, or there understanding of them has changed. This change seems to be a matter of opinion, not mathematics.
From Draxas
It would have been deemed unimportant to the non-scientists who decide the budgets for these projects, and would have been passed over for something "more significant."
I'm not sure if most non-scientists feel there is much significance to this mission be it to a planet or not. We really only care about life beyond this world, anything else is quite dull at this point (iow, no interstellar missions, no colonization/terraforming) to your average non-scientist.
|
|
|
|
|
Logged
|
|
|
|
|
|
Deus Siddis
Enlightened
Offline
Gender:
Posts: 1387
|
Unless you're saying that space is not worth exploring until we find life on other planets?
No, that doesn't make any sense, unless you put faith in "SETI," a joke though it may be.
Or that we should only stick to examining worlds that would harbor life "as we know it"?
That would be a good place to start. After that, you can shoot for alternative forms of life. But NASA is probably afraid that if they did put out a good effort and discovered that there really is no life in this system beyond earth, for sure, their funding would drop off the cliff that is the average person's limited interest in rock/snowball exploration.
That is, unless you had mining, terraforming, or interstellar exploration, all of which are still a long ways off (even mining.)
In either case, that seems a vote against our entire space program.
If by that you mean "entire extra-earth-orbit space program," then yes. Which would help explain the lesser funding and interest payed to organizations like NASA, of late.
Now don't get me wrong, I do enjoy reading more about planets and nanotech in science news than about how an animal I know is intelligent, is intelligent, or about all the new diseases modern technology has caused and their corresponding experimental pharmaceuticals. But I think most people do not find this sort of exploration for the purpose of exploration to be very worthwhile or interesting.
|
|
|
|
|
Logged
|
|
|
|
|
|
Shiver
Guest
|
AND IT'S OFFICIAL! UB-34642615135 or whatever it was called has been renamed "Eris". Serves everyone right for thinking a C-grade daytime TV show that got canned years ago deserves a planet named after it.
|
|
|
|
|
Logged
|
|
|
|
danica180
Guest
|
 |
pluto
« Reply #37 on: October 09, 2006, 11:36:57 am » |
|
Pluto has been demoted by scientist into a minor planet which only means that there are only eight major planets in the solar system. It is unlikely that Pluto's status in the future will be return to planetary.
|
|
|
|
« Last Edit: October 09, 2006, 06:04:31 pm by meep-eep »
|
Logged
|
|
|
|
|
|
Draxas
Enlightened
Offline
Gender:
Posts: 1044
|
Incase anyone didn't notice (check the sig), that was a spambot.
Is it just me, or are these things getting more obnoxious by the day?
|
|
|
|
|
Logged
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Death 999
Global Moderator
Enlightened
Offline
Gender:
Posts: 3874
We did. You did. Yes we can. No.
|
That situation is not dynamically stable. They would pull on each other and eventually collide or gravitationally scatter until they weren't in the same orbit as each other.
You could do that with a Jupiter-sized planet and an Earth-sized planet, though, perhaps (there is a minimum mass ratio). What would we call that Earth, then? A trojan companion of the Jupiter. Perhaps we'd invent the term 'companion planet', which is lower in status, like 'dwarf planet', than a regular planet.
|
|
|
|
|
Logged
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Pages: 1 2 [3] 4
|
|
|
|
|
