Planetary Downsizing

Since Pluto has been downsized, does this mean that a planet in India has taken over it's position?

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(withersea @ Aug 24 2006, 12:31 PM) [snapback]308821[/snapback]</div>

That may happen eventually. For the time being, though, the remaining 8 planets will be expected to pick up Pluto's workload while a greater reorg of the solar system is under way. The plan is for Earth to resume its old position at the center with the sun & other planets revolving around it.

However, there's a rumor that Mercury & Mars will leave the solar system and start their own smaller, more nimble system. Pluto may be in the running for a position in the new system.

 

I'll miss you Pluto.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Proco @ Aug 24 2006, 09:43 AM) [snapback]308826[/snapback]</div>

Probably the best post I'm going to read all day...

 

I guess that "planetary" probe sent to Pluto is now a "dwarf planetary" probe. The team working on that will lose a lot of street-cred. Did anyone think of their feelings when they went and trashed our eccentric neighbor's planetary status?

Also, has anyone considered that this might piss off the god of the underworld? Risky move, I say!

 

I'm just devastated!! I teach astronomy at a local college and Pluto was my best story. Clyde Tombaugh searching dim slides night after night to find that little something that moved; finding it one early morning and sharing the news with the cleaning lady. Percival Lowell, who owned the observatory, trying to get the new planet named after his wife and, when that fell through, slipped in Pluto which started with his initials.

Now, when they find it has three moons instead of just one we toss it out into the cold dark night like a relative that was becoming too expensive to support.

I was expecting to wake up today to hear that Ceres, Charon and Xena were new planets. I already padded my expense account with research for upcoming lectures. Now I find my pay might get docked for having less to teach. Astronomy isn't the cushy job you might think!

And Proco is right: any fool can see that the Earth is in the center and everything else goes around us. Down Copernicus, Up Brahe! Long live the Plutons!

Clyde, I'm glad you're not here to see this!!

Pluto, with bright Charon and little Nix and Hydra, its three moons:

 

I just registered the domain http://www.eightplanets.org/

I'm gonna show those guys at http://www.nineplanets.org/ who's the big cheese now!

 

Wow, bigdaddy, nice grab. You'll be rolling in dough when the nineplanets.org guy realizes that his sales of solar system tours are plummeting and he buys you out!

 

Well, I think Pluto will be back by popular demand. The people will rise up and refuse to accept the newly reconstituted Solar System and Pluto will stay.

As for the rest, while I can accept Ceres and Charon I refuse to accept Xena. I will not accept an astral body named for a TV character. It goes against tradition. (And Pluto is part of tradition so it stays.) I don't accept Sedna either. Wrong mythology. Let's keep it consistent folks.

So there.

(And if I were Supreme Dictator of the Universe for Life I'd make it so.)

You know what this really is? It's a conspiracy by the map makers to sell new posters, maps and globes of the revised Solar System. Then in a few years....they'll revise again and sell a whole new set of stuff.

For those serious about the 10th planet

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Proco @ Aug 24 2006, 09:43 AM) [snapback]308826[/snapback]</div>

LOL :lol:

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Godiva @ Aug 24 2006, 02:10 PM) [snapback]308877[/snapback]</div>

Boy are you in trouble! No doubt the map makers will be sending some "associates" out to have a chat with you.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Ichabod @ Aug 24 2006, 01:20 PM) [snapback]308853[/snapback]</div>

That's what Pluto gets for being eccentric and skewed from its conforming neighbors.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(AnOldHouse @ Aug 24 2006, 01:52 PM) [snapback]308912[/snapback]</div>

Could targeting Pluto then be considered a hate crime?

 

The Bush administration must have determined that there is NO OIL ON PLUTO!!!!!!

 

Gustav Holst was right. Just goes to show that Musicians, no astronomers should be in charge of what is and is not a planet.

Astronomers say Pluto not a planet

Movement's of The Planets orchestral suite:

1. The Planets: I - Mars, The Bringer Of War
2. The Planets: II - Venus, The Bringer Of Peace
3. The Planets: III - Mercury, The Winged Messenger
4. The Planets: IV - Jupiter, The Bringer Of Jollity
5. The Planets: V - Saturn, The Bringer Of Old Age
6. The Planets: VI - Uranus, The Magician
7. The Planets: VII - Neptune, The Mystic

(He left off Earth as he was standing on it.)

The Planets

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Godiva @ Aug 24 2006, 03:08 PM) [snapback]308927[/snapback]</div>

Only if you call it offensive Pluto slurs or physically harm it in some way. Otherwise, shunning Pluto is just common bigotry.

I definitely think this situation puts Pluto in a "protected class" of orbitals which should immediately qualify it for an endless variety of government programs.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Godiva @ Aug 24 2006, 11:10 AM) [snapback]308877[/snapback]</div>

Ya know, you may be right; recall the changes in maps after the fall of the Soviet Union and the reconstitution of former satellite states, not to mention the seeming rash of countries renaming themselves or dropping their old colonial appendages, to the ones adding theocratic titles. One scholastic globe maker simply gave up and now sells a globe with cutouts to replace the former names...

ooh, ooh, I just use Google Earth and update it