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Firestarter
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 Posted: Thu Aug 24, 2006 1:59 pm Post subject: There's only Eight Planets now ... |
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Pluto is now considered too small to be a planet.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/in_depth/5282440.stm
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Astronomers meeting in the Czech capital have voted to strip Pluto of its status as a planet.
About 2,500 experts were in Prague for the International Astronomical Union's (IAU) general assembly.
Astronomers rejected a proposal that would have retained Pluto as a planet and brought three other objects into the cosmic club.
Pluto has been considered a planet since its discovery in 1930 by the American Clyde Tombaugh.
The vote effectively means the ninth planet will now be airbrushed out of school and university textbooks. |
The worst thing is that all the existing ways to remember the order of planets are completely useless.
E.g "Easy ways to remember the order of the planets are the mnemonics: "My Very Excellent Mother Just Sent Us Nine Pizzas" and "My Very Easy Method Just Simplifies Us Naming Planets".
Lose the planets and the pizzas and nothing makes sense any more. |
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Rei
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| Posted: Thu Aug 24, 2006 2:19 pm Post subject: |
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Yeah, that's just a little weird. So it's not considered an actual planet. Doesn't mean we should change textbooks. I mean, it is still there. And What will happen to those mnemonic devices? Will it be changed to ""My Very Excellent Mother Just Sent Us Nougat"
(I dunno. It's the only thing I could think of that didn't sound too odd.) |
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| Posted: Thu Aug 24, 2006 3:06 pm Post subject: |
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My Very Evil Mother Just Sent Us Nothing.
*sniffles*
I loved Pluto. He was everybody's favourite planet when they were little because he was the smallest.  |
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| Posted: Thu Aug 24, 2006 3:11 pm Post subject: |
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It's for the best. If we kept Pluto as a planet, we'd then have to add all the other objects out there. Our Solar System would end up looking like this:
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| Posted: Thu Aug 24, 2006 3:39 pm Post subject: |
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I think this whole business is nonsense and that those astronomers just made utter fools of themselves. Why exactly does it matter if Pluto is a planet or not? They should just leave it be and be more careful about what they call a planet in the future. It's not the end of the world if we continue calling Pluto a planet.
In any case, I doubt it even matters what they decided. Schools don't buy new textbooks all that often, so it'll be a while before those get updated. Then there's the issue that very few people are even listening. Billions of people grew up calling Pluto a planet, and they'll continue calling it a planet. |
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| Posted: Thu Aug 24, 2006 8:24 pm Post subject: |
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| In the long run, it really doesn't matter. It's in our solar system, no? Though it makes Holst look slightly more credible... |
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| Posted: Thu Aug 24, 2006 8:40 pm Post subject: |
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Well, astromers need a way to define what a planet is. Before, we didn't have way to define exacatly what a planet is.
This naturally caused lots of problems, especially as we've found planets the same size as (and, in at least one case, larger than) Pluto in our Solar System. So, astromer's wanted to know what exactly a planet is. And it turned out that Pluto didn't quite make it. |
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| Posted: Thu Aug 24, 2006 8:42 pm Post subject: |
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Hehehe... but then you come back to this question:
Would a rose by any other name still smell as sweet? |
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| Posted: Thu Aug 24, 2006 8:46 pm Post subject: |
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Well, the name means little. It's still there. It's still the same as it always what. Only now it's called a 'dwarf planet' instead of just 'planet'.
Of course, if an alien species came to our Solar System, they'd say there are four planets, and three specks which are considered to be important by the fungus living on the third speck from the Sun. |
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| Posted: Thu Aug 24, 2006 9:29 pm Post subject: |
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That's the last straw...I'm going to jump off of a bridge now....
Seriously, I don't see any value in Pluto being demoted with the expection of the tiny bit of sentimental loss I feel for the future generations who won't learn about Pluto in elementary.. |
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Sureal
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| Posted: Thu Aug 24, 2006 9:31 pm Post subject: |
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Um, they'll still learn about it. Textbooks will just add in the word 'dwarf' before the word 'planet' when describing it...
And not only that, but the students will get to learn about the other three dwarf planets in our solar system (so they're not losing out - they'll get more than us). This brings the numbers up quite nicely - we have four rocky planets, four gas giants and four dwarf planets in our Solar System. |
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| Posted: Thu Aug 24, 2006 11:13 pm Post subject: |
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| Go Pluto!!!!!! Actually, that is kinda weird...are you sure it's true? |
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| Posted: Fri Aug 25, 2006 12:08 am Post subject: |
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| I thought we had twelve planets now...So wouldn't it be eleven? |
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| Posted: Fri Aug 25, 2006 1:48 am Post subject: |
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No- they reconviend in the Czec republic, and redefined what a planet was. being round and orbiting the sun was too loose.
That said. I don't give a flying rats ***. I'm tired of hearing about it. I don't CARE anymore. Just get it OVER with!! AAAAAAAAAHHHHHH!!!!
*pop*
*death* |
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| Posted: Fri Aug 25, 2006 2:55 am Post subject: |
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Plutowned.
:O |
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