Pluto's moons

[Ice Cream Jonsey]

... Are called Nix and Hydra, to go along with the previously discovered Charon.

Right now a bunch of astronomers are meeting in Europe to decide, once and for all, if Pluto is truly a planet or not. Here's a link to the debate:

http://www.dailytech.com/article.aspx?newsid=3768

Because it is my civic duty, I have to point out that some homo discovered a possible planet farther out from Pluto and decided to call it and its moon "Xena" and "Gabrielle." Michael E. Brown did his part to relegate astronomers to desperate, prancing fanboys for the next 50 years. That will be his true contribution to society. The name is going to change and thank Christ.

My prediction? These people aren't traveling hundreds of miles and engaging in all that expense for the status quo. In order to feel important I don't doubt that some weird-ass shit is going to be defined as a planet in a few days from now and poor Pluto won't be one of them.

[Knuckles the CLown]

I met the guy who discovered Pluto, Clyde Tombaugh when I was like 10. He was huddled mass, he must have been 80+, and they wheeled him out covered in a blanket. Think a frailer Jon Wooden. I don't remember anything except the fact he deiscovered Pluto by accident.

[Draal]

Heard about this a year ago, then created a definition that exempted the Earth from planetary status.

Marvelous examples of arbitrary judgement when the content is vastly more important then the definition (physical characteristics, process of creation; generally, what stars are, as opposed to how they are labeled).

[Ice Cream Jonsey]

The New Horizons probe is going to fly past Pluto in July. I've been waiting for this for a very long. We have amazing images of every other pl... oh, right. All the planets in the solar system, but not Pluto. Though it is not a planet.

(Though, since I wrote this thread they discovered two more moons. So that's Charon, Nix, Hydra, Kerberos and Styx. If they find more how do we honestly say it hasn't cleared its orbit? Which is one of the new criteria for planethood.)

Anyway, this is pretty exciting and worth staving off suicide for. New Horizons already has given us the best image so far of Pluto, which is this:



71 million miles away when taken.

[RealNC]

Well, if it's made a planet, then all other plutoid objects must also be planets. Then we'd have like 5000 planets :-P

[Ice Cream Jonsey]

Then we have 5000 planets!

Here's the latest. You'll thank me for this, all of you, in time.

http://pluto.jhuapl.edu/soc/Pluto-Encou ... _sci_1.jpg

[pinback]

Then we have 5000 planets!

Here's the latest. You'll thank me for this, all of you, in time.

http://pluto.jhuapl.edu/soc/Pluto-Encou ... _sci_1.jpg

Fake and gay.

[RealNC]

Look, I'll put it this way: The chance of Pluto becoming a planet again is about the same as me withdrawing my money from the ATM.

[Tdarcos]

Pluto used to fit the rules but they changed them. There are 3 rules on whether an astronomical body does or does not qualify as a planet, and Pluto now only fits two of them. (1) is big enough to have its own gravity; (2) is not so big it turns into a sun; (3) has cleared its orbit of debris*. The 3rd one is the new one that Pluto fails.

Downgrading Pluto to planetoid or dwarf planet has been unpopular, and they may add some new rule or exception to restore Pluto to planet status.

* Hmm, if I can keep the area around my wheelchair free of junk, I might just qualify as a planet too!

[Ice Cream Jonsey]

Pluto used to fit the rules but they changed them. There are 3 rules on whether an astronomical body does or does not qualify as a planet, and Pluto now only fits two of them.

This ought to be good.

(1) is big enough to have its own gravity;

Wrong.

(2) is not so big it turns into a sun;

Wrong.

[wrong](3) has cleared its orbit of debris.[/wrong]

Wrong.

1. It's in orbit around the sun.
2. It's round.
3. It's cleared its neighborhood.

It's just the two of us left here at Jolt Country, so what are ya gonna do.

[Tdarcos]

(1) is big enough to have its own gravity;

Wrong.

(2) is not so big it turns into a sun;

Wrong.

[wrong](3) has cleared its orbit of debris.[/wrong]

Wrong.

1. It's in orbit around the sun.
2. It's round.
3. It's cleared its neighborhood.

It's just the two of us left here at Jolt Country, so what are ya gonna do.

You can start by having a little respect, or at least common courtesy. So the resource I read had the first two wrong. Then I said "cleared its orbit of debris". Planets can't walk around with a vacuum cleaner! A planet is the cosmological equivalent of a BNSF freight train, it has a certain trajectory, and so it would move along that trajectory. With its gravity it would collect anything along its trajectory.

How is what I said in the third entry wrong? Or, in essence, different from your response?

----
Did you hear about the sadist who could never use a web form because he could never bring himself to push the "submit" button?

[Ice Cream Jonsey]

Because debris is not a well-defined term. There's debris around the Earth. Paint chips flake off from the junk we've thrown up there.

But what they seem to mean by "cleared the neighborhood" is that the thing in question isn't in an asteroid belt, which Ceres, Pluto, Haumea and Makemake are.

Look man. It's just us. We need to find a way to work together on this BBS. Revenge against all odds!

[Ice Cream Jonsey]

Here's the pic from yesterday, false color:

[pinback]

That's some bad link, Harry.