Our Solar System has lost a member. Astronomers decided on their IAO meeting that Pluto is no longer a planet.

http://www.space.com/scienceastronom...efinition.html


Edit: I hope this topic doesn't already exist. My search revealed nothing, however.

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[ 08-25-2006, 01:18 AM: Message edited by: Loudhy ]

Yeah, I thought this might happen, they have been discussing it for a while :(

Oh well, it's not a major loss [img]smile.gif[/img]

He was a good pet to our solar system.. Loyal.. Kind, not nosing in, but this isolation driven this kind blue planet to insanity. R.I.P little guy [img]smile.gif[/img]

They made this oh-so-complicated definition of a planet, that is pretty stupid if you ask me. By the definition, Earth, Saturn and Jupiter would also not be planets. They are taking it under further revisement, last I heard.
First they wanted to make it 12, then they saw that the 3 they wanted in (Xena, Sedna and Quaoar) were no different from a few other bodies in the solar system, by definition(Ceres, Charon, Orcus, Varuna etc.), and pretty soon, we'd have a solar system of 200 planets. Making the word "Planet" worthless.

[ 08-25-2006, 06:57 AM: Message edited by: Bozos of Bones ]

I heard that this morning while getting ready for work. Gonna mess up a lot of kids' science projects! :D

Pluto died!!! :eek:

I bet that sniveling little rat Mickey and his ho' Minnie did it. Disneyland sure is a rough hood these days


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Mary Very Early Made Jane Shake Up Nellys...

It just doesnt make sense without a pillow :(

It's probably just some kind of power struggle between the Olympian Gods. Nothing to worry about.

I still see this as a "I'm right, you're wrong" argument. What other difference could it possibly make?

Note: I'm not allowing any more Disney stuff in here, treacherous old mouses...

I have to disagree with you here, Bozos...The definition requires fairly reasonable, planetary things...it must orbit around the Sun. The body must have attained a rounded, equal-energy shape through it's own gravity, and must have cleared it's own orbit of other debris.

The Earth, Saturn, and Jupiter have all done this...heck, Jupiter has cleared a couple more orbits than it's own, and is most of the reason we have eight planets instead of nine (I'm refering to the asteroid belt.

Sure, there's debris left, but in all honesty, since it's orders of magnitude smaller, it's negligible.

Horray for the scientific community not caving to public pressure on this one. I mean, really, if we're wrong, we're supposed to fix things, not just let them continue on their merry little way.