Review of solar system may leave Pluto out in the cold

[emad]

Review of solar system may leave Pluto out in the cold
By Mark Henderson, Science Correspondent



ONE of the longest-running controversies in astronomy — the question of what constitutes a planet — could soon be resolved by a radical proposal to abolish the term as a catch-all category.

The organisation responsible for naming celestial objects is to revise its qualifications for planetary status after discoveries that have challenged the traditional model of nine planets orbiting the Sun. In the past five years powerful telescopes have revealed several large objects that orbit farther out than Pluto, and at least one of these, tentatively named Xena, is bigger than the smallest member of the Sun’s official planetary family.

This has led increasing numbers of scientists to question whether Pluto should be in the same club as Earth, Mars and Jupiter, while others believe that the category should be extended to include small icy worlds in the outer reaches of the solar system. Along with Xena, the nickname for an object known officially as 2003 UB313, bodies called Sedna and Quaoar (pronounced kwa-whar) have been identified at the edge of the solar system. Although both are smaller than the smallest official planet, many astronomers believe that these all belong to a similar category of overgrown, icy asteroids in the Kuiper Belt beyond Neptune.

To address the problem, the International Astronomical Union (IAU), which oversees such classifications, is considering abandoning the use of the term “planet” unless it is accompanied by a qualifier. Under a proposal from a 19-member nomenclature panel, leaked to the journal Nature, the rocky inner planets, such as Earth and Mars, would be known as terrestrial planets. Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune would be gas-giant planets and everything more distant than that would be trans-Neptunian planets.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,11069-1791282,00.html

[SteppingRazor]

1. Good. So long, Pluto. We hardly knew ye...

The problem is that we will likely find a lot more Pluto-like objects in the coming years. Are all of these planets? Of course not. If they were, then we should be dubbing the largest astroids in the astroid belt planets as well.
Pluto should be reclassified in a new category, far-range planetoid -- FREEP, for short. They're cold, little, and devoid of life.


But the more important question -- how will this affect astrology? :evilgrin:

[flyingfysh]

2. isn't this kind of silly?

These objects don't care what humans call them.

[Skinner]

3. I tend to agree.

To me, this seems like an argument about the definition of words. By arguing over the definition of the word "planet" we don't change anything about Pluto or Jupiter or Earth or anything else. Pluto will still be there, doing its Pluto thing regardless of what we call it.

[electron_blue]

4. Yes, but "planets" have a way of getting NASA missions

more easily than non-planets. ;)

In the scientific community, Pluto is generally treated as a "trans-neptunian" body, or Kuiper belt body, or even a minor body, depending on who is doing the naming. I think it's a good idea for the IAU to develop a naming convention, since other Pluto-like bodies are being discovered.

[Meldread]

5. More than just that...

...I think people are overlooking what we may find outside of our solar system. Is Titan a Moon or a Planet? It fits the definition of a Moon, but is more like a Planet than the moons we are used to seeing.

I wouldn't be shocked to find that there is some Earth like planet somewhere else in the Universe, but orbiting another body. In fact I would even argue, judging from the number of moons in our solar system alone - that most of the interesting objects we will find will actually be "Moons".

Speculation aside, looking at the data we have now we KNOW large gas giant planets like Jupiter and Saturn are pretty common, and we know from Jupiter and Saturn that they tend to have a lot of Moons.

[IvotedforKodos]

6. The gods will be angered....

to know that pluto is being left out....He's a god too!

I smell another hurricane!