Pluto Now Called a Plutoid

[superconnected]

Source: Space.com

The International Astronomical Union has decided on the term "plutoid" as a name for dwarf planets like Pluto.

Sidestepping concerns of many astronomers worldwide, the IAU's decision, at a meeting of its Executive Committee in Oslo, comes almost two years after it stripped Pluto of its planethood and introduced the term "dwarf planets" for Pluto and other small round objects that often travel highly elliptical paths around the sun in the far reaches of the solar system.

The name plutoid was proposed by the members of the IAU Committee on Small Body Nomenclature (CSBN), accepted by the Board of Division III and by the IAU Working Group for Planetary System Nomenclature (WGPSN), and approved by the IAU Executive Committee at its recent meeting in Oslo, according to a statement released today.

Here's the official new definition:

Read more: http://news.yahoo.com/s/space/20080611/sc_space/plutonowcalledaplutoid

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Well I was disappointed when Pluto got kicked out of planet status.

Remember the joke on how they explained Pluto not being a planet anymore to Bush? They gave up and told him it was destroyed by a death star.

[katty]

1. what a dumb name - poor Pluto

[customerserviceguy]

14. Well, "dwarf" planet

wasn't exactly PC.

[Freddie Stubbs]

2. Does that mean that Fox News anchor Bill Hemmer is now a hemmeroid?

[Captain Hilts]

3. Damn it - Pluto will ALWAYS be a planet to me. And St. Christopher a full-fledged saint. nt

[tabasco]

4. Me too. I met the guy who discovered Pluto.

The great Professor Clyde Tombaugh.

[Maat]

5. I was VERY disappointed Pluto got kicked out of Planethood.

AND, it rendered quite a few of my kid's textbooks "out-of-date."

[AlphaCentauri]

6. I see how kids are going to start calling their short pals at school

[Sherman A1]

7. I will continue to support The Planet Pluto

and I refuse to accept it's alleged demotion to a whatever they choose to call it.


Have they no sense of decency?


:banghead:

[Generator]

10. To the Bastille my friend!

Pluto or death. Plutoid my ass!

[dixiegrrrrl]

8. Did they change Mickey's name too?

If they change Pluto's name does that mean all the
Little Golden Books have to be
re-written?
This is obviously a ploy by Disney world to cash in...

[Blaze Diem]

9. Oh ya, Mickey, Minnie, and Plutoid

What a stupid name.

[Endangered Specie]

11. I think I'm going to go against the grain and say I'm glad Pluto isn't a planet...

I know, I know... I must be a freeper ;)

[Liberal Veteran]

12. I tend to agree.

Pluto was just asking to be singled out and demoted with that whole, "I just gotta be me" eccentric orbit.

[Sherman A1]

13. I wonder if we need

A GD: P(luto)?


:hi:

[Endangered Specie]

16. I can see it now... Pluto claims to be taking asteroid sniper fire

from the Kuiper belt, its also been associated with a controversial moon for so many eons

[Sherman A1]

19. Agreed

You know those cosmic rays can do some damage to one's memory. Pluto's been a planet a long time and obviously a planet gets tired and forgetful. Then there is that orbit thing, over and over and over, you are here, then you are there and then back here, it just gets to be too much sometimes. :shrug:




:rofl:

[eppur_se_muova]

15. I foresee widespread use of the word "chimpoid" to come ... nt

[Wilms]

17. Scientific American: Is Rekindling the Pluto Planet Debate a Good Idea?

Is Rekindling the Pluto Planet Debate a Good Idea?

Critics accuse Pluto boosters of beating a dead planet

April 10, 2008

Pluto lovers, don't despair: Researchers have not given up the fight for the former ninth planet. Many of them put up a fuss two years ago when the International Astronomical Union (IAU) downgraded Pluto to the status of mere dwarf planet. Now they plan to revive the debate, this time under the banner of public understanding of science.

Researchers on both sides of the issue are set to gather in August at Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory in Laurel, Md., for what's being called "The Great Planet Debate: Science as Process." The goal, says the conference's co-organizer Mark Sykes, director of the Planetary Science Institute in Tucson, Ariz., is to teach the public that science is a process of constant revision and refinement. "People should be exposed to that process," he says. "The IAU process gave the impression that science is done by a bunch of scientists voting behind closed doors."

The schedule for the upcoming conference includes back-to-back talks on the current IAU definition of a planet (a round body that has cleared its orbit of competitors) as well as an earlier version, preferred by researchers such as Sykes. Also listed is a talk on "challenges and opportunities" for teachers, who are invited to attend. "One of the problems over the last couple of years," Sykes says, "has been teachers have been confused what to teach"

The lingering resistance to the IAU's decision irks some researchers. "I think fighting it is doing more damage to our reputation than anything," says Harold Levison, a planetary scientist at the Southwest Research Institute in Boulder, Colo. He agrees with the IAU's conclusion, he says, but adds that he would have rather seen planets divided into two groups: major and minor. The IAU could still decide to revisit the subject in a meeting scheduled for next year.

snip

http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?id=rekindling-the-pluto-planet-debate

[Buns_of_Fire]

18. Alright, let's see what the WGPSN decides to do about Uranus.

Mars, Neptune, Venus, Mercury... all perfectly acceptably noble names. But who ever heard of a god named "Uranus?"

I propose it be renamed "Fafner."

[martymar64]

20. It's name should be Yuggoth

That's it's name from HP Lovecraft's "The Whisperer in Darkness".

That's where the Mi-Go are from.