OT: Pluto Not A Planet!

[Makinus]

Slick said:
Imagine all the text books that are now wrong...

In Brazil the government will only substitute the public schools books from 2008 onwards (they said it was too huge a cost to substitute for books already bought and printed)...

[geoschmo]

I would think most decent textbooks printed in the last decade would have at least a passing mention of the ongoing discussions about Pluto's status. It's really a non-issue. I guess if the teacher is incompetant and unable to teach without reading rote from the textbook it might be a problem. But if that's the case the students aren't getting a decent science education anyway.

[Renegade 13]

Seems to me like this is one big beaurocratic screw up.

The IAU put together a special committee to define the word "planet" two and a half years ago!

Several days ago they release what they finally came up with, after two and a half years of painstaking (yeah right) debate and research...and what happens? A few astronomers get together, slap a different definition together and that's the one they go with!

I just find it so utterly stupid that a committee could debate this on and off for so long, and have their careful definition fall victim to a quickly slapped together definition. Oh how horrible beaurocracy can be!

On a slightly more serious note, I think the definition they've gone with is utterly senseless. From what I've heard, the new definition relies on some vague terminology to work. For example, for a planet to be a planet it has to be the dominant body in its "neighborhood"...OK, so what is a planet's neighbourhood? What do they mean by has to be the "dominant body"? Does this mean that, if we discover two planets the size of Jupiter sharing the same orbit (could easily happen around some other star), does that mean that neither one fits the definition of "planet" since neither one really dominates it's neighborhood? After all, two objects can't "dominate" the same neighborhood, can they?


Personally, I highly favor a definition based upon gravity or mass. Either one, it sets a definite limit.

Heh, and they still haven't defined the upper limit on planetary size...wonder how they'll screw that one up??

[Raging Deadstar]

I can't remember who said it but yesterday was an "undiscovery" for the human race

At least now I can grow up to be a crotchety and ripe age and tell my grandchildren that "when I was a lad we had 9 planets!"

[narf poit chez BOOM]

...I didn't vote for them.

[geoschmo]

It's all ridiculous anyway. From a scientific perspective it really doesn't matter if you call something a planet or not. It's not as if what you call it affects the reality of what it is.

The most truly assinine thing I read was the article on CNN...

It was unclear how Pluto's demotion might affect the mission of NASA's New Horizons spacecraft, which earlier this year began a 91/2-year journey to the oddball object to unearth more of its secrets.

I mean really, come on now. "Sorry guy's. Pluto is no longer a planet so let's turn that ship around and bring her back here."

[Renegade 13]

Many Very Eloquent Men Just Shut Up Needlessly

[AngleWyrm]

Maraschino Velvet Entices Many Jeweled Sinners Unto Naughtiness

[PvK]

OMG that CNN quote ... ack!

[narf poit chez BOOM]

They may well have meant that the information may be given less attention. It's a sound byte.