POLL: Should Pluto's Planet Status Be Revisited?

[spacenik]

Planet... Shmanet... let's make this real easy?!

If it's round or sorta round, bigger than a 1000 miles in diameter, circles the sun, who cares about the shape of the orbit, has mass & volume, and floats out there by it self... it's a planet!

If it has all of the above. but circles around a larger body... it's a moon!

Anything else is just a cosmic billiard ball, round or not!

KISS THE COSMOS... BABY! (KISS: KEEP IT SIMPLE STUP!D)

The IAU is way over doing this!

 

[moontube]

This poll is totally bogus. The only three options given are highly biased.

If Eris is bigger than Pluto that does not automatically make Pluto a non-planet. Pluto and Eris are two examples of a third kind of planet besides rocky planets and gas giants.

The criterion of having cleared out its orbit has been proven ridiculous by the fact that even Earth would not qualify as a planet if it were Pluto's distance from the Sun. There are planets in other solar systems that are bigger than Jupiter that have not cleared each other out of their orbit.

A reasonable definition of a planet is that it orbits its primary star rather than a planet and it is massive enough to have pulled itself into a roughly spherical shape. That was the original definition that was proposed in Prague, but was amended by the partisans who were present on the last day of the IAU conference. If this means that the solar system has fifty planets or a hundred, so be it.

 

[TheAnt]

I fully agree with moontube.
This is nothing but one discussion about semantics, and these are interesting worlds whatever we call them. So just give it a rest and hope we all be alive when New Horizons get out there at Pluto so we can share our views then.

 

[trumptor]

I also agree that any body with enough mass to become spherical and orbits the sun should be called a planet.
But then, these should be divided up into ones that fit different situations (eg. inner terrestrial, gas giant, kuiper belt...)
Eskimos have a bunch of different words for snow because to them it's not all the same and its important to them to differentiate between wet, dry, hard...and as we learn more about the diversity of planets out there we may want to create more labels for different types of planets as well, but not cut out the rest because there would be too many.

What if there is a large rocky body in the outer reaches of the kuiper belt with a massive moon providing enough tidal friction for the larger body to have above freezing temperatures and an atmosphere? According to the current definition it wouldn't be a planet because it can't clear that large of an orbit, even though I'd imagine 99.9% of the worlds population would consider it a planet. The whole clearing their orbital path rule I think was devised as a way to count out any planets that may ever be found past Neptune, regardless of similarities to any planets closer in, which is just ridiculous.

 

[trumptor]

The wording of the poll questions are pretty funny because they often tie other opinions into the main one, such as the first one. If you think that Pluto should be a planet the only option would be the one where you have to agree that Eris is NOT a planet. :lol: Usually its hard to participate when you don't have a clear choice.

That would be like....

Poll: Do you think the Earth is the center of the solar system?

A. Yes, we can see by looking outside that the other objects revolve around the Earth and all cats should be declawed.

B. No, we have proven long ago that all the bodies revolve around the center of mass of the solar system which is approximately where the sun is located and a wormhole that can take you to other realms, probably magical.

 

[MeteorWayne]

In general, polls stink.

 

[lorq]

I voted "yes,' though not for reasons having to do with Eris's size relative to Pluto. I voted "yes" because the revision of the definition of "planet" to include the fact of having swept out other objects in its vicinity is, first of all, completely superfluous and artificial compared to the two primary traits of orbiting its parent star and being big enough to be spherical.

Second of all, it is instantly incoherent, as Earth itself has not swept out *all* objects in its immediate vicinity (i.e. asteroids). To the response that it has swept out all "major" objects in its vicinity, one must ask, how *big* does an object have to be to be called "major"? And you've reproduced the problem all over again.

Third, the only argument I've heard in favor of the "sweeping out other objects" definition is that without it, the number of planets in the solar system could get much larger. Um... what? SO?? If the solar system turns out to have one hundred planets, the solar system will have one hundred planets. We don't seem to have a problem with the large number of elements on the periodic table. I don't even know why we're discussing this, why this is even being entertained as a serious argument -- especially when professional astronomers are involved. But I suspect several of these astronomers have allowed their scientific competence to be clouded by their desire to be -- no better phrase for it -- media whores.

Never trust an astronomer who has trouble with numbers larger than nine.

 

[MeteorWayne]

I voted "yes,' though not for reasons having to do with Eris's size relative to Pluto. I voted "yes" because the revision of the definition of "planet" to include the fact of having swept out other objects in its vicinity is, first of all, completely superfluous and artificial compared to the two primary traits of orbiting its parent star and being big enough to be spherical.

Second of all, it is instantly incoherent, as Earth itself has not swept out *all* objects in its immediate vicinity (i.e. asteroids). To the response that it has swept out all "major" objects in its vicinity, one must ask, how *big* does an object have to be to be called "major"? And you've reproduced the problem all over again.

Quite untrue. There are almost no objects larger than a few meters in earth-like orbits.

 

[trumptor]

The whole clearing its orbit rule is subjective because we don't know how large objects within the planet's orbit have to be before we demote the planet or how many objects there need to be. Also it'd be pretty difficult to tell if the orbit of something far out in the kuiper belt has objects that it hasn't cleared or not, nor is it likely that an object with an orbital radius of 8 billion miles can effectively clear its orbit ever.

It just seems that the rule wasn't thought out very well and was just used as a tool to remove Pluto from the list of recognized planets.

 

[bdewoody]

From my point of view none of the planets have totally cleared their orbital track as they are all still struck frequently by asteroids and comets. It's a stupid criteria. For the benefit of classification of planets around other stars an object should be considered a planet if it is massive enough to form a spheroid shape and it orbits only it's parent star, regardless of composition or size. An object should be considered a moon if it orbits a planet, regardless of shape or size or composition. This is a simple straight forward easy to apply criteria.

 

[adrenalynn]

In general, polls stink.

And the "official" polls here are like stink-on-stink.

 

[elderpav]

None of the choices offered reflected my viewpoint. Not fair! I believe Pluto AND Eris should be considered planets! My definition is simple: If it's big enough to be round, orbits a star, and is itself not a star, then it's a planet. All this crap about clearing it's orbit of debris (something no planet actually does, even Earth hasn't), orbital eccentricity (many recently-discovered exoplanets are in highly eccentric orbits, and it very well may turn out that our solar system is rare to have so many planets in nearly-circular orbits), and such only complicate the matter. Let's keep it simple people.

 

[jonesgang]

How many planets have we visited? TWO (Earth and Mars with rovers)
How many moons have we visited? ONE (Earth’s moon)
What do we really know with positive proof? The earth is round and we have one moon.

Everything else is just speculation and the last I knew you could not use speculation as a positive conclusion.

Basically we as man know almost nothing of space except what we can see from Earth. Yes we have some extremely smart people trying to find the answers, but we will never know for sure unless we can visit them personally and that is not in our immediate future.

So all we can truly do is make a best guess. All based on speculation.
There is so much to learn and we have not even begun to scratch the surface of space.

We as the occupants of Earth need to do more and stop basing answers on speculations.
We need to get out there, explore and discover. We are so extremely limited here on Earth that all we can really do is guess. We should not treat space like the old saying
“Do something even if it is wrong, just do something and look busy”.
And I fear that is what we are doing. We are trying but are we really trying hard enough?

 

[trumptor]

So, are you saying Pluto should or shouldn't be a planet??? :lol:

 

[bobbo19]

sat on the fence for this one. TBH we still know remarkably little about the little fella' so lets wait and see what more observations reveal. Does it really matter though, ha! Scientists gewtting there underwear in a twist over no reason

 

[bdewoody]

How many planets have we visited? TWO (Earth and Mars with rovers)
How many moons have we visited? ONE (Earth’s moon)
What do we really know with positive proof? The earth is round and we have one moon.

Everything else is just speculation and the last I knew you could not use speculation as a positive conclusion.

Basically we as man know almost nothing of space except what we can see from Earth. Yes we have some extremely smart people trying to find the answers, but we will never know for sure unless we can visit them personally and that is not in our immediate future.

So all we can truly do is make a best guess. All based on speculation.
There is so much to learn and we have not even begun to scratch the surface of space.

We as the occupants of Earth need to do more and stop basing answers on speculations.
We need to get out there, explore and discover. We are so extremely limited here on Earth that all we can really do is guess. We should not treat space like the old saying
“Do something even if it is wrong, just do something and look busy”.
And I fear that is what we are doing. We are trying but are we really trying hard enough?

You forgot about Titan and I would say several of Jupiter's moons have been visited as well as other moons of Saturn. But all of that is not relevant. Pluto, Ceres and Eris all orbit only the sun and are spheroid and therefore should be classified as planets with or without a visit.

 

[MeteorWayne]

I believe the poster was referring to SS objects we have landed on (he should have included Venus, Eros, and Itokawa as well , and maybe Tempel 1, which we whacked pretty hard )

 

[jmbuckley]

I tend to agree with Alan Stern (and my working on New Horizons before launch has little to do with it :lol: ). Really, I was more upset as a kid when Saturn's 10th moon was discovered. Oh Nos! Things are changing[super]tm[/super] up there!

It's not that Pluto has been demoted that rankles; it's that the new definition makes so little sense for the next big rock or gas-ball that comes along (or for the challenge looming for our great-great grand-kids, what to do about even more weird exo-planets).

 

[kelabelle]

ABSOLUTELY.

 

[ittiz]

none of the above, I think Pluto and Eris are both planets. The current definition is poor at defining objects in other solar systems. Although I personally think we should move away from the traditional ideas we have for defining objects in space.

 

[hjtombaugh]

I voted "Yes."

I respect the need to continually refine and clarify and categorize our observations of the natural world.

I can accept the "Dwarf Planet" designation for Pluto, and for Eris, and for others that meet the same criteria and behave similarly as long as that "Dwarf Planet" counts as a planet -- albeit a different classification than its larger kin.

I have absolutely no objectivity on this. Clyde Tombaugh was a distant relative. The fact that he was able to find Pluto using crude blink plate technology is absolutely amazing to me.

 

[poptoy]

If it orbits the sun it is a planet. Plain and simple. I learned that back in the 50's and if it was good enough then why is it not good enough now? Why do people have to complicate things and add if's and buts? No wonder when people wake up in the morning animals all get cautious. Keep it simple. PLEASE!!!!

 

[DannyD72]

As an history major, I feel that pluto should retain it's "planet" Status. For thousands of years, it has been considered a planet. Just because modern science didn't find it until 1930, doesn't mean that it was unknown. The ancient peoples of Central America, Egypt, China, India, and many more places knew of it's existance as much as 3000 years ago. These peoples accurately mapped it's position in relation to the other planetary bodies, and took it into account in their astronomy and religion. The International Planet Police (International Astronomical Union) didn't exist 3000 years ago, so why should they have a say about something that did and has been regarded as a planet every since. Clyde W. Tombaugh wasn't the first person to discover Pluto, he was just the first person in the modern era to discover Pluto. So should we strip him of the honors recieved for his discovery, and give it to some nameless person from thousands of years ago? No, so don't go stripping Pluto of it's honors as a planet either. So we have recently discovered that there are other nearly plantary sized object in near orbits. SO WHAT!!? We also only recently learned that the Earth wasn't flat, that the Sun doesn't orbit the Earth, that some Sea Monsters (Giant Squid) are real. So what now? Do we change the history books like good little revisionists and go back and say Pluto is no longer a planet because the Grand High Pooh-bahs in the International Astronomical Union say so? Who gave a bunch of self elected eggheads the right to decide what the rest of the world calls our ninth planet. Scientists still know that it's a Kuiper Belt object, and can treat it that way, but the rest of us want to continue calling it the ninth PLANET. If they want to call it something else, then they should ask the rest of the world's opinion, not just scientists and astronomers, but all of us. After all, it's our solar system too!!!

 

[frankfukai]

Based on the speed of observation with today's technology, it is still hard to determine whether there exist some icy bodies that are larger than Pluto in the Kuiper Belt.

 

[cosmictiger]

As an history major, I feel that pluto should retain it's "planet" Status. For thousands of years, it has been considered a planet. Just because modern science didn't find it until 1930, doesn't mean that it was unknown. The ancient peoples of Central America, Egypt, China, India, and many more places knew of it's existance as much as 3000 years ago. These peoples accurately mapped it's position in relation to the other planetary bodies, and took it into account in their astronomy and religion. The International Planet Police (International Astronomical Union) didn't exist 3000 years ago, so why should they have a say about something that did and has been regarded as a planet every since. Clyde W. Tombaugh wasn't the first person to discover Pluto, he was just the first person in the modern era to discover Pluto. So should we strip him of the honors recieved for his discovery, and give it to some nameless person from thousands of years ago? No, so don't go stripping Pluto of it's honors as a planet either. So we have recently discovered that there are other nearly plantary sized object in near orbits. SO WHAT!!? We also only recently learned that the Earth wasn't flat, that the Sun doesn't orbit the Earth, that some Sea Monsters (Giant Squid) are real. So what now? Do we change the history books like good little revisionists and go back and say Pluto is no longer a planet because the Grand High Pooh-bahs in the International Astronomical Union say so? Who gave a bunch of self elected eggheads the right to decide what the rest of the world calls our ninth planet. Scientists still know that it's a Kuiper Belt object, and can treat it that way, but the rest of us want to continue calling it the ninth PLANET. If they want to call it something else, then they should ask the rest of the world's opinion, not just scientists and astronomers, but all of us. After all, it's our solar system too!!!

I doubt I can say it in a way that will make anymore sense to these new revisionists screwing around with it now than your words should explain it to them very clearly that all these bozos with all those useless letters after their names are really no smarter than any of the rest of us are, nor do they have anymore authority over the universe than any of the rest of us do! Throughout the entirety of human history, no one has been able to agree on much of anything globally or spiritually, therefore no one is going to be able to agree on much of anything cosmically either! So they can all screw around with it all they want to, until some newer new generation of know-it-all's decides they wanna screw with it too, but none of it will ever change the only universal truth that the only constant in the universe is it's perpetually changing!