Pluto loses it's Planet status....

[daz]

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/5282440.stm

[Kain]

How stupid

Why they couldn't just leave it as it is is beyond me, its been known as a planet for 70 odd years, why change it now.

Kain

[FLO]

You will be surprised how quickly you get used to it.

Personally, I think it was overdue!

[Jamie]

Personally, I think it was overdue!

Keep you off yer sleep eh??????????

[Kain]

I have to disagree with you on that Steve, sorry!

Kain

[FLO]

I have to disagree with you on that Steve, sorry!

Kain

No probs, its only an opinion

[AstroTiger]

IMHO pluto has always been seen as planet since its discovery 70 years ago.

This decision will mean rewriting the books. But i think its firmly established in popular astronomy and will be seen as that.

The time to make this decision was when the object was first discovered not 70 years later!

The IAU may say pluto is not planet, i for one will continue to see it as one ;-)

Al

[GordonCopestake]

At the end of the day it's all semantics, pluto will remain the same no matter what we call it. It doesn't make the New Horizons mission any less worthwhile, pluto wont disapear in a puff of smoke if we call it a dwarf planet, a planet or a TNO

[Kain]

They say Pluto hasn't got gravitational dominance as theres other objects in the Kupiter belt, though you could argue Jupiter, Earth and Neptune are not planets, Theres loads of NEA, Trojans and so on in the orbits of the planets mentioned.

Kain

[tenbyfifty]

Any takers for this idea:

Doubtless there are thousands of KBOs we don't know about and maybe a lot of them are bigger than Pluto. If you added them all together you would probably get a decent size planet so, since Pluto was the first member of the group to be discovered, why not give it the status of a representative planet . This allows it to carry on being a planet without having to get your knickers in a twist every time you discover something bigger - Pluto would just be an ambassador for the whole group.

[GazOC]

I think Pluto is just too near the knuckle in too many aspects. Too small, orbit too inclined, orbit too elipical, really a double planet.....maybe if one or two of those were true you'd cut it some slack and leave it as a planet but its got too many strikes against it IMHO.

[daz]

Well, the saga continues.

Many astronomers are now questioning the IAU authority to actually reclassify the definitions, and they're refusing to acknowledge the change of status.

This will be an interesting topic to follow....