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125 Comments
- inactive, on 08/10/2008, -4/+100Pssh... Scientists are all the same. They go and tell you they don't need you anymore, and then there's the inevitable 3:00 AM drunken phone call where they promise this time things will be different, and they want you back.
- pe5t1lence, on 08/10/2008, -2/+73Ok, what is cooler:
A) Being a planet just like those 8 other jerks
or
B) Being a plutoid and having other (tiny) jerks named after you!
Your honor, I rest my case. - Derfy, on 08/10/2008, -6/+68Pluto has always been a planet in my heart.
- 4ndr3w, on 08/10/2008, -1/+37Oh for *****'s sake, this /again/?
- digitalPhonix, on 08/10/2008, -2/+36Poor Pluto... If they un-demote it, what will NASA do about the consoler probe?
http://www.theonion.com/content/node/56641 - TheCoreh, on 08/10/2008, -2/+27"Dr Neil deGrasse Tyson, from the American Museum of Natural History, will argue that Pluto does not deserve to be a planet."
:'( - inactive, on 08/10/2008, -0/+24If they make Pluto is made a planet, then all the other icy bodies have to be considered planets too, some of them are even bigger than pluto.
- Jeffler, on 08/10/2008, -5/+25Bush apparently thinks there's plutonium on the surface, and sees this as a way of negotiation
- Kitchenfire, on 08/10/2008, -0/+19Dear Astronomers:
Pluto is a Plutoid. Deal with it.
With love,
Astrophysicists. - xDemosthenes, on 08/10/2008, -1/+20Pluto is NOT a planet, we've been over this already. Its simply one of the largest objects in the Kuiper Belt.
- FulcrumVitesse, on 08/10/2008, -2/+17It's essentially a nationalistic American issue. Pluto is the only planet that was discovered by an American, and American astronomers took it personally when Pluto was demoted. That's the actual reason, no kidding.
- jivemasta, on 08/10/2008, -0/+15They want to classify a planet as a spherical object. This would create a ton of debate about almost every object in our solar system. that would make most of the moons , some of the comets, and some of the kuiper belt objects into planets. Therefore, they need to change the definiton to something along the lines of:
A planet orbits only around a sun, and is large enough that gravity forms it into a sphere-esque shape.
This definition, will allow pluto to be a planet, but won't include just anything in the list of planets. I know that planets don't only orbit a sun, since they also are orbiting their galaxy's black hole, but in a solar system scale, they only orbit a sun. Also they need to not name anything else X planet, where X is a size modifier. Either they are a planet or they are not.if they don't fit the definition, they are something else, come up with a different name for them. - renegadeafk, on 08/10/2008, -1/+15dude what the *****
- UrinalPooper, on 08/10/2008, -0/+14Pluto had to take one for the team just so that we weren't adding new 'planets' every few months. It's a big kuiper belt object... now it has an entire class of planetoid named after it (plutoids). AND, more people remember Clyde Tombaugh's name now than before it got demoted.
- m0tbaillie, on 08/10/2008, -2/+15When I was your age, Pluto was both a planet AND a plutoid.
- jellygraph, on 08/10/2008, -0/+13I don't understand why we can't just accept that Pluto isn't a planet anymore... it's not that hard. The only reason it was given its own category was as a compromise to make everyone happy.
- WombleSlayer, on 08/10/2008, -8/+20To reclassify Pluto as a planet would mean that we would literally have to reclassify hundreds to planets, it be rewriting the scientific definition.
- Smwbigboss, on 08/10/2008, -4/+15This is a really pointless debate.
- inactive, on 08/10/2008, -4/+15I'm so sorry Pluto! I loved you all along! Losing you was the biggest mistake of my life! PLEASE Comeback Pluto I love you!!!
- Jeffler, on 08/10/2008, -3/+14Making a big deal about who submitted it, while making an obvious spelling error...buried
- jellygraph, on 08/10/2008, -1/+11That was weird... wtf?
- fatbobsmith, on 08/10/2008, -1/+10By your definition, it could be argued that Luna (our moon) should also be classified a planet. It's spherical and receives more orbital pull from the Sun than from Earth. The Earth and the Moon rotate around a barycenter, very similar to Pluto and Charon.
- wiiittttt, on 08/10/2008, -3/+13Having a rough time with those ex's?
- EggAndMuffin, on 08/10/2008, -1/+9Make up your mind, scientists.
- ineptsavant, on 08/10/2008, -0/+7If we let Pluto be a planet then I would think that the number of planets would jump up to at least 10. The dwarf planet Eris http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eris_(dwarf_planet) is larger than Pluto. I don't think we should grandfather in Pluto as a planet for the sake of tradition. According to the International Astronomical Union Pluto is indeed a "dwarf planet", so saying: "why could Pluto not remain as a dwarf planet just as Jupiter is a giant planet." doesn't seem to make much sense as an argument. Science is about hard facts not nostalgic considerations.
- tr0y85, on 08/10/2008, -0/+6LEAVE PLUTO ALONE!!!!!!!
- jivemasta, on 08/10/2008, -0/+6Shape alone can't determine a planet. If that was the case, any thing in space could be a planet. A glob of water is a sphere in space, does that make it a planet? You have to have a set size in the definition. Then you need a way to exclude moons also.
- iFrix, on 08/10/2008, -1/+7I wanna be a plutoid!!!!
- T440, on 08/10/2008, -2/+7I'm gonna go ahead and predict that there will be a comic tomorrow about that statement.
- MavRevMatt, on 08/10/2008, -0/+5Alright, we get it. You figured out how to exploit Digg's comment system. Now kindly STFU.
- mdmcgee, on 08/10/2008, -0/+5This article is spurious at best. The article is about TWO scientists wanting pluto to have it's planetary status re-instated.
The problem is that when we first discovered pluto we knew it wasn't quite like the other 8 but we had not found any other objects similar enough to pluto to grant it it's own classification. Decades later we have discovered over 300 "Trans-neptunian" objects (who know where the article came up with the name "plutiods") all sharing the same eccentric highly-elliptical orbit as pluto. A number of these objects are considerably larger than pluto. Thus we needed to clarify the definition of a planet as :
1. An object that is large enough for gravity to shape it. (Aprox. round)
2. Orbit about the sun in an elliptical orbit
3. Have cleared it's orbit of other objects
Pluto cannot meet these simple requirements so therefore it cannot be a planet and we need
to simply move on with life and stop getting so sentimental and emotional about it just because
we learned incorrectly in kindergarten that there are nine planets.
We now have enough information to state that we can have eight planets or hundreds and we chose
to define planet in such as way as to give us 8 planets.
It makes it easier when Pluto and Charon have more in common with huge comets than planets. - TobiasParker, on 08/10/2008, -0/+5Your post baffles me:
A.) A Star and a Sun are the same thing.
B.) Everything has its own gravity, that is how gravity works.
C.) It wouldn't be an Orbit if it wasn't in the gravitational effect of a star. I assume you meant comets which are still in a Orbit, albeit highly elliptical ones. If something ever escaped the gravitational effect of its star it wouldn't come back. - burnin8r28, on 08/10/2008, -0/+5cant we all just be planets?
- 3210, on 08/10/2008, -0/+4The funny thing about this is that you would think that scientists, out of all people, would be willing to accept the fact that Pluto is not actually a planet, rather than try to redefine what a planet is just to have it promoted to "planet status".
- LokitheComplex, on 08/10/2008, -1/+5If they're round they're a planet. Some are big and some are small.
- inactive, on 08/10/2008, -0/+4that barycenter is still inside the Earth though.
- inactive, on 08/10/2008, -0/+4Pluto is a binary system anyway, it's not a stand alone planet.
- inactive, on 08/10/2008, -0/+3That isn't gravitational sphereness, it's surface tension.
- toastybeast, on 08/10/2008, -0/+3For the love of god, it's just a rock. Who cares?
- Stevethegreat, on 08/10/2008, -0/+3Since scientists decided to call a planet a spherical object which orbits around a star in a non-elliptical orbit such a decision would make no sense. Pluto has elliptical orbit, it would ***** up things if it was to be reinstated, science supposed to be serious stuff that goes according to the rules unlike religions which went along the high priests' whims. Let's hope that this stuff is not true.....
- DyceFreak, on 08/10/2008, -0/+3I'm an astronomer and I say its not a planet
/lies
but really... who cares? so what if there is no "pizzas" anymore... - kipmartin, on 08/10/2008, -0/+3you should--we all know Pluto has been screwing your wife.
- bluetrevian, on 08/10/2008, -0/+3Pluto!? Is a planet!!
- zeebo, on 08/10/2008, -0/+3That's pretty close, however, the definition of a planet also includes:
d.) Has cleared its orbit of other similar sized objects
Which is where Pluto and Ceres before it failed. - aserer511, on 08/10/2008, -0/+3this does have undeniable consequences, though. NASA and the IAU look all that mch less serious when they waffle on Pluto's categorization. we need a body that can stand by such a major decision and not revoke it after what, 2, years?
- lazyrussian, on 08/10/2008, -3/+6No *****. Did you not read what it said in the summary:
Senior space scientists, including experts from Nasa, will this week attack a controversial decision by the International Astronomical Union, the body responsible for astronomy nomenclature, ***to redefine what constitutes a planet.*** - inactive, on 08/10/2008, -0/+3http://plutos.ytmnd.com
- Rudegar, on 08/10/2008, -0/+3but how does that influence my astronomer future?
will i still come into a bit of money at the start of the month
and go on a long sea journey with a dark stranger ? :P - ProfessorRiffs, on 08/10/2008, -2/+5Die.
- Rendonsmug, on 08/10/2008, -0/+3"can't accept that real science must adapted to new evidence and real data, and complain about the ruling."
You call a few hundred astronomers sitting in a room and *voting* on whether or not pluto should be a planet real science? -
Show 51 - 100 of 131 discussions
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