Kevin's Watch

Recent disscusions have been questioning weather or not to continuse to classify Pluto as a Planet or not.

Given the fact that it's moon is nearly the same size, and it's so small with such a slow orbit.

Apparantly, astonomers have decided that it will still be classified as one, but now a few other have ben nominated...including Pluto's moon. a Large asteroid (that used to be concidered a planet until the middle of the 19th century) and a new discovery beyond PLuto called Xena.

Link

drew wrote:Recent disscusions have been questioning weather or not to continuse to classify Pluto as a Planet or not.



Link

Well thank God that's been settled!


Interesting article. I didn't know it took Pluto 200 years to orbit the sun.

It makes sense that as the technology advances, the classification of planets might change.

With a name like Charon, how could that celestial body simply be a moon?! For all of his effort and devotion on that river in Hades, he deserves to be a planet.

Yay for Pluto, imagine teachers having to explain to millions of children that one of the planets has been 'taken away', it would be Velikovskian.

Gil galad wrote:Yay for Pluto, imagine teachers having to explain to millions of children that one of the planets has been 'taken away', it would be Velikovskian.

I only know that Velikovsky had some fairly unorthodox views on the history of our solar system. So yeah, I'd have to agree with you!



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More than just unorthodox, they were outright crazy!

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Hey, step off my man Velikovsky, dudes. How can you deny that Venus began life as a comet and caused the parting of the Red Sea? Don't you know that the rupture of a seam in the earth's mantle opened "the fountains of the deep" and caused the Flood? And what else is the Great Rift of Africa but the scar of that ancient cataclysm? And how to explain erratic boulders -- and drifts of hippo bones in Scotland -- but by great Waves of Translation, miles high, triggered by Venus' interruption of Earth's rotation?

Okay, so he's a little weird. But very fun to read!

The new classifications have been proposed, but from what I've heard, they're pending an official vote next week, which will decide whether they use them. If they go through, Ceres, Charon, Pluto, and 2003 UB313 will all be (dwarf) planets.
Hopefully they'll give 2003 UB313 an official name that isn't as stupid as the unofficial one (Xena).

Xena, the warrior planet? I ber Mars will have something to say about that.

Pluto and all that other junk should not be classified as planets. Pluto and Charon are really just moons of Neptune with unusual orbits. All that other crap is too small or the orbits are too eliptical to be called planets. Our solar system should be considered to have 8 planets and a bunch of other stuff of varying sizes and orbits.

Pluto and Charon are really just moons of Neptune with unusual orbits.

Do you mean "former" moons of Neptune?

dlbpharmd wrote:

Pluto and Charon are really just moons of Neptune with unusual orbits.

Do you mean "former" moons of Neptune?

No I don't mean "former" moons. If you look at the orbits of Pluto and Charon they intersect the orbit of Neptune at some point of their year. In other words at some points in their orbits around the sun Pluto and Charon are closer to the sun then Neptune and at other points they are farther away from the sun then Neptune. Therefore, in a sense, Pluto and Charon are orbiting around Neptune. If a smaller body is orbiting around a larger body then it is a moon of that body. Of course Pluto and Charon aren't moons in a typical sense as they don't maintain a constant distance from Neptune. Thus my statement that they are moons of Neptune with unusual orbits.

Sandgorgon rider wrote:

dlbpharmd wrote:

Pluto and Charon are really just moons of Neptune with unusual orbits.

Do you mean "former" moons of Neptune?

No I don't mean "former" moons. If you look at the orbits of Pluto and Charon they intersect the orbit of Neptune at some point of their year. In other words at some points in their orbits around the sun Pluto and Charon are closer to the sun then Neptune and at other points they are farther away from the sun then Neptune. Therefore, in a sense, Pluto and Charon are orbiting around Neptune. If a smaller body is orbiting around a larger body then it is a moon of that body. Of course Pluto and Charon aren't moons in a typical sense as they don't maintain a constant distance from Neptune. Thus my statement that they are moons of Neptune with unusual orbits.

In no way can Pluto and Charon be considered moons of Neptune, even if the orbits overlap. The Sun, not Neptune, is at the focus of Pluto's orbital path and a calculation of the gravitational forces between the Planets and the Sun, and the planets and each other at the points where they are most apart shows that the attraction to the sun is over a million million times greater than between Neptune and Pluto.

Sandgorgon rider wrote:

dlbpharmd wrote:

Pluto and Charon are really just moons of Neptune with unusual orbits.

Do you mean "former" moons of Neptune?

No I don't mean "former" moons. If you look at the orbits of Pluto and Charon they intersect the orbit of Neptune at some point of their year. In other words at some points in their orbits around the sun Pluto and Charon are closer to the sun then Neptune and at other points they are farther away from the sun then Neptune. Therefore, in a sense, Pluto and Charon are orbiting around Neptune. If a smaller body is orbiting around a larger body then it is a moon of that body. Of course Pluto and Charon aren't moons in a typical sense as they don't maintain a constant distance from Neptune. Thus my statement that they are moons of Neptune with unusual orbits.

So going by that logic, Halley's Comit is a Satellite of Earth?

It's a telling sign that Pluto orbits the sun - and not Neptune.

Indeed. If the sun being the focus of the of the planets' orbits wasn't what counted, how could we know if Pluto was Neptune's moon, or Neptune was Pluto's?

Loremaster wrote:

Sandgorgon rider wrote:

dlbpharmd wrote: Do you mean "former" moons of Neptune?

No I don't mean "former" moons. If you look at the orbits of Pluto and Charon they intersect the orbit of Neptune at some point of their year. In other words at some points in their orbits around the sun Pluto and Charon are closer to the sun then Neptune and at other points they are farther away from the sun then Neptune. Therefore, in a sense, Pluto and Charon are orbiting around Neptune. If a smaller body is orbiting around a larger body then it is a moon of that body. Of course Pluto and Charon aren't moons in a typical sense as they don't maintain a constant distance from Neptune. Thus my statement that they are moons of Neptune with unusual orbits.

So going by that logic, Halley's Comit is a Satellite of Earth?

It's a telling sign that Pluto orbits the sun - and not Neptune.

I was thinking about comets as I was writing that post and was hoping no one would question me about it. I guess the people on this site are too smart:) I realize that Pluto can't really be classified as a moon of Neptune. I just have a long standing antagonistic relationship with Pluto and can't stand having it classified as a planet. It is too small, it's orbit is too irregular and I just plain don't care for it.

Sandgorgon rider wrote:I just have a long standing antagonistic relationship with Pluto and can't stand having it classified as a planet. It is too small, it's orbit is too irregular and I just plain don't care for it.

I sort of feel the same.

while i like Pluto for those very reasons. we must have room for the odd planets as well.

OK, so Pluto is safe. What about Goofy and Donald?

sorry. a bit of random stupidity. It is Friday afternoon, after all...

I'd just like to say that nobody touch Uranus.