Possible 10th Planet

[WilliamTell]

Pretty cool if you're interesting in astronomy and space.

 

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20050730/ap_on_sc/new_planet

[FlaSoxxJim]

Interesting. I assumed it was going to be an updated story on Sedna, which is already under consideration as the putative 10th planet. But if the distance and, most importantly, the size of the new body is what they say it is then maybe we're looking at planets 10 and 11.

 

Sedna is extimated at 8 billion miles away from the sun and only 3/4 the size of Pluto, as compared to 9 billion miles and 1-1.5 times as big. Also, Sedna is suposed to be red in color.

 

Neither planetoid may ever get planet designation, of course. There are a good number of scientists who think Pluto should not be considereed a planet either. Possibly all of those distant ice masses are part of the Oort Cloud, which they still don't have a very good handle on either.

 

Cool stuff.

[WilliamTell]

Interesting.  I assumed it was going to be an updated story on Sedna, which is already under consideration as the putative 10th planet.  But if the distance and, most importantly, the size of the new body is what they say it is then maybe we're looking at planets 10 and 11.

 

Sedna is extimated at 8 billion miles away from the sun and only 3/4 the size of Pluto, as compared to 9 billion miles and 1-1.5 times as big.  Also, Sedna is suposed to be red in color.

 

Neither planetoid may ever get planet designation, of course.  There are a good number of scientists who think Pluto should not be considereed a planet either.  Possibly all of those distant ice masses are part of the Oort Cloud, which they still don't have a very good handle on either.

 

Cool stuff.

 

 

I say let Pluto be a planet, even though many think it shouldn't, it's been a planet for a while now. Plus it has it's own moon, that's enough for me.

[FlaSoxxJim]

I say let Pluto be a planet, even though many think it shouldn't, it's been a planet for a while now. Plus it has it's own moon, that's enough for me.

Theer is a lot of sentimentality attached to Pluto, yeah. And if it were, uhm, de-planetized, then what would happen to My Very Erstwhile Mother...? woud she Just Serve Us Nine... nothing. Maybe they'd change it to Noodles?

 

But there is not scientifically a lot goinf for Pluto to stay a planet. It's moon Charon is relatively larger to it's parent planet than any other moon in the solar system. And there are at least 8 other moons in the solar system (including our own) that are bigger than Pluto.

 

Given Pluto's eliptical orbit (recall it was actually 8th closest to teh sun for about 20 years until recently, and the fact that it has a rock-ice composition strongly suggests it's the largest yet known Kuiper Belt Object (of which there are 10s of thousands). All the other distant planets of our solar system planets are gas giants, so we certainly know that Pluto's genesis is not the same as those Jupiter, Saturn and Uranus.

 

But I agree, it will be sad on a popular culture level to strip teh designation from Pluto, even if it is just a big burned out asteroid.

 

Rock on, Tiny Pluto!

[UofIChiSox]

I'm pretty sure if we take away Pluto's planethood the Plutonians will get pissed off and attack. Don't mess with Pluto.

Edited August 1, 2005 by UofIChiSox

[Balta1701]

I say let Pluto be a planet, even though many think it shouldn't, it's been a planet for a while now. Plus it has it's own moon, that's enough for me.

I believe some reports say that this thing has a moon of some sort orbiting it as well.

 

On a side note...the guy Mike Brown whose group did this announcement...he's 1 building over. Real nice guy, had a class from him last year. Does some real interesting work on the Kuiper belt.

[WilliamTell]

I don't think we could go any smaller than Pluto for a planet. lol I mean come on now, being a planet is a very exclusive thing, we don't need 50 of them. Seriously though, I love having Pluto as a planet and both sides of the argument can be agreed upon. It is cool that our moon is bigger than Pluto though.

[SoxFan1]

I'm pretty sure if we take away Pluto's planethood the Plutonians will get pissed off and attack.  Don't mess with Pluto.

^^^^^

 

Not even Lee Elia could have said it better....

[GoodAsGould]

I don't think we could go any smaller than Pluto for a planet. lol I mean come on now, being a planet is a very exclusive thing, we don't need 50 of them. Seriously though, I love having Pluto as a planet and both sides of the argument can be agreed upon. It is cool that our moon is bigger than Pluto though.

 

Size isnt what decides if its a planet or not.

[FlaSoxxJim]

I don't think we could go any smaller than Pluto for a planet. lol I mean come on now, being a planet is a very exclusive thing, we don't need 50 of them. Seriously though, I love having Pluto as a planet and both sides of the argument can be agreed upon. It is cool that our moon is bigger than Pluto though.

And 50 is a low estimate for Pluto-esque outer solar system bodies. There are probably around 35,000 KBO (Kuiper Belt Objects) large enough to be tracked. Certainly most (if any) are not as large as Pluto, but their rock/ice composition sheds light on the probable genesis of Pluto and should bear directly on the argument. If Pluto is simply a large short-life comet or KBO that got caught up in an orbit around the sun (like 35K other smaller objects, as well as other sfurther out in the oort cloud), then I don't think there is much in favor of planet status other than tradition and sentiment.

 

Also, the earliest size/mass estimates that led weight - literally - to the argument favoring Pluto as a planet included the size/mass of its moon in the measurements. I forget if I hd noted it earlier, but some of the scientists in favor of keeping the planet designation do want to revise Pluto's description as a double-planet because of the relative size of its moon and the somewhat arbitrary decision to call the smmaller body moon and the larger body planet.