Pluto update

[ciphergoth]

According to the latest news it looks like Pluto may be denied planet status after all. Rah!

One of these things is not like the others:

Comments

[lovelybug.livejournal.com]

Why do you hate pluto? *cries*

[keirf.livejournal.com]

Botanically, Pluto may not be a planet, but in the culinary sense it always will be.

[purplerabbits.livejournal.com]

I'm with Charlie on this one...

[babysimon]

Lots of planets! We want lots of planets!

[ergotia.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I want every asteroid in the asteroid belt to be classified as a planet and given a name. They would run out of names from ancient Greece and Rome so they would have to use obscure pantheons whcih would be coool :)

[ciphergoth.livejournal.com]

Cf Rendezvous with Rama - the clue is in the name :-)

[zotz]

One of these things is not like the others:

It's the one in the middle. It's too big and hot.

Why are they insisting on deciding on a definition now? We've only found about three Kuiper belt objects, so why not wait until we have a better idea of their size distribution? Is it really so urgent?

[reddragdiva]

Yes. They expect to find another fifty over the next five or ten years, I think.

[olethros.livejournal.com]

Not sure, but I suspect UB313 has a lot to do with it. If enough people start calling it Xena, I guess it'll be even harder to demote two planets than one. Maybe this would work.

[zotz]

According to a couple of articles I read over the weekend, Xena is the one thing we can be sure it won't be called, as the discoverers have confirmed that they've submitted a proposed name and that it isn't that.

I like the strip. Any chance we could extend it to Mayans?

[ergotia.livejournal.com]

Man! Nobody is gonna believe me, but I really did make my earlier comment before I saw the strip!

[vulture23.livejournal.com]

Heh, Nahuatl is such a fun language!

(Though I feel obsessively obligated to point out that we have plenty of named non-planets. And we are already starting to use non-Greco-Roman names, e.g. Sedna and Quaoar. Btw, the story of Sedna is a fascinating one, and I recommend it to anyone with even a passing interest in mythology...)

Personally, I don't much care whether Pluto is a planet or not, though I fervently hope that whatever is decided is a logically consistent rule -- that is, if Pluto *is* a planet, then Ceres and UB313 (and probably Sedna and Quaoar) should be as well. I'll only be upset about Pluto being both a planet and a Kuiper belt object if the definition prevents other KBOs (or asteroids) from being planets too. I'm happy with eight planets, or with 12, or 53, but nine planets is a silly number.

[some-fox.livejournal.com]

*giggle*

[funky-firelord.livejournal.com]

Does that mean that Pluto is to become a planetoid,
Will all the astrologers be crying onto there natal charts with the loss of pluto :-)


Firelord

[ciphergoth.livejournal.com]

One of the great things about this controversy is the astrologers look even more stupid than usual no matter what the outcome of this is. It'll be entertaining to see them either trying to rationalize why your chart doesn't need to contain every last rock in the solar system, or give all of the thousands of them distinct meanings, and to come up with excuses why they made up a meaning for Pluto in the first place.

[mskala.livejournal.com]

Common misconception. Astrologers don't take the IAU's word for how many planets are important in a chart, for the same reason the IAU doesn't use astrological sign-degree notation to describe locations in the sky.

[ciphergoth.livejournal.com]

That depends on the astrologer. Some stick to the classical five planets, but Pluto has not been universally ignored.

[mskala.livejournal.com]

I'm not sure how that relates to what I said. Yes, many astrologers use Pluto. They didn't start just because the IAU declared it a planet, and they won't stop just because the IAU may declare it not-a-planet. Some astrologers even use planet-like things that they acknowledge do not physically exist (e.g. the "Uranian planets"). Rocks in the sky and symbols on the chart aren't necessarily the same things.

Sorry love....

[ergotia.livejournal.com]

I know you hate astrology but you are on a hiding to nothing here. Before Pluto was discovered Mars was the ruler of Scorpio, for example. The three outer planets move so slowly that in astrology they are interpreted as having effects on a generation rather than on individuals so before we knew they were there astrology did not have that level of interpretation. Ceres and Pallas are not planets but their movements are recorded and used in astrology.

Dont criticise without the date, even with junk science.

xxxxx

Re: Sorry love....

[ergotia.livejournal.com]

Data! not date, data! gaaarrgh!

Re: Sorry love....

[ciphergoth.livejournal.com]

I take your point, but I still think this means trouble for astrologers. I know that serious astrologers have endless layers of obfuscation to hide behind, but I hope that for the public, the understanding that our solar system contains an endless menagerie of objects of different sizes and that it's hard to draw a clear line between them will undercut the plausibility of attributing magical qualities to rocks in space.

Re: Sorry love....

[ergotia.livejournal.com]

I doubt it. I mean, think of what Xtians believe in spite of all science has to say...

Re: Sorry love....

[strangerover.livejournal.com]

But of course, the astrologers would have seen this coming...

I've always been tempted to stick a note on the Gypsy Fortune Teller's booth door by the harbour at Whitby...

"Closed due to unforseen circumstances"

[purplerabbits.livejournal.com]

Fortunatley Pluto has very little impact on natal charts.

And not just because it's bollocks.

[ciphergoth.livejournal.com]

It is? That would explain why Charon is so similar in size...

[the-maenad.livejournal.com]

And just slightly asymmetrical.

[jhg.livejournal.com]

SHAME!

[ergotia.livejournal.com]

I am very tempted to start a save Pluto motif running in my LJ, but i think I will resist the bait for a while longer:)

And, er, re the diagram, as an alternative type dont you have issues over declaring to be a planet you must have a regular orbit?

[runesandmen.livejournal.com]

Can't help feeling sorry for Pluto, even though it is just a cold lump of rock!

[drdoug.livejournal.com]

Hmm - I'd like to leave Pluto out, but the proposal for having 'is the dominant body in its orbit' as a rule is crap - the only merit is that it excludes Pluto. What if an Earth-style body was found intersecting the orbit of a Jupiter-style one? I'd say the smaller body was still a planet. (I know current theory says that's unlikely - but unlikely, not impossible.)

[ciphergoth.livejournal.com]

I agree. Since they're explicitly saying that this definition only applies to this Solar System, I don't know why they don't simply define planet as "any body above 200 Yg". Or indeed "any body given that title by the IAU, starting with these eight".

[keirf.livejournal.com]

Nine. Starting with these nine.

[ludy]

i'm very upset no one is naming any new planets Rupert (like in Mostly Harmless)

[itsjustaname.livejournal.com]

Poor Pluto, nevermind, it'll always be a planet to me.

[aster13.livejournal.com]

If they call that new one Xena, is it going to end up being called Warrior Princess all the time?
Enquring minds wish to know.

[uon.livejournal.com]

One of these things is not like the others

What's wrong with a bit of harmless eccentricity? I'd always thought of you as the sort of person who would tolerate a wide variety of inclinations, but now it seems this is not the case.